Impact of pollution on the health of Delhi’s underprivileged children

In response to the growing concerns of young children's developmental health and well-being due to the rising levels of pollution, Sesame Workshop India Trust and Clean Air Fund have rolled out this environmental initiative

New Delhi: Focused on bringing forth the environmental concerns of 10,000 children from low-resource communities of Delhi, an initiative called ‘Mera Planet Mera Ghar’ is utilising a child-friendly approach — one that involves the characters of children’s TV show Sesame Street in making children more environmentally aware. Since 2006, Sesame Workshop India has reached children through mass media, including Galli Galli Sim Sim, the local version of Sesame Street, and now reaches children with engaging and educational content featuring the beloved muppets of the show.

In response to the growing concerns of young children’s developmental health and well-being due to the rising levels of pollution, Sesame Workshop India Trust and Clean Air Fund have rolled out this environmental initiative. Children from as many as 28 localities of Delhi were surveyed over four months to understand the environmental concerns faced by them for which they could be supported by adults at home and in communities.

As per the organisations, the children in communities aged 6-8 and 9-10 years were surveyed, who raised concerns around access to potable water within 500 metres of their homes, garbage burning and segregation, promotion of bicycles, and ban on the widespread use of fireworks and to create special zones for fireworks displays. The organisations are hosting four advisory meetings of children with local leaders in four locations — Bhalaswa JJ, Narela, Nizamuddin, and Sunder Nagri in which children will present their concerns on the environment in their localities with the respective local leaders.

Children will also be seen presenting possible solutions in response to environmental concerns. The ‘Mera Planet Mera Ghar’ initiative keeps the developmental health interests of children at its heart while addressing the issue of the environment that is detrimental to children’s overall health and well-being.

“To address the pervasive impact of pollution on children, Sesame Workshop India partnered with non-profit organizations like Action India, Child Survival India, and Chintan, who helped us administer the responses from nearly 10,000 children of low resource communities in Delhi.

Experts from Chintan also helped in designing the survey with child-friendly visuals, in an age-appropriate way so that children could respond to the survey with ease,” it said. Chintan’s Rajneesh Tyagi shares that children “near the landfills or in the slum areas or those who play outside are more vulnerable to the impact of air pollution as they breathe more rapidly than adults.

Hence, environmental concerns impacting them must be brought to the forefront and heard”. According to Clean Air Fund, the initiative aims to “empower the young children of Delhi who are impacted by the pollution challenges disproportionately. By supporting ‘Mera Planet, Mera Ghar’, we are happy to bolster community-scale action with regards to air pollution”.

Giving a platform for children to raise their voices, Sonali Khan, Managing Trustee, Sesame Workshop India Trust said: “Lack of access to clean air, portable water, health, and education impacts the children of lower socio-economic background far more severely.

Hence, to safeguard children’s well-being and health, Sesame Workshop India partnered with our implementing partners to engage with nearly 10,000 children of Delhi’s low resource communities and help them champion the change by giving them a platform to raise awareness on environmental concerns in their communities and share them with their area’s local leaders.” The findings show that children want cleaner air and surroundings for themselves and emphasized the use of bicycles, curb on burning garbage or firecrackers, all of which if implemented can help in reducing the levels of air pollution.