Mobile Creches
Providing quality childcare for the poorest families in india
In India, millions of young children still lack access to quality early childhood care and development: malnutrition has stunted the growth and development of an estimated 33% of children under five, and 8% experience wasting, the most life-threatening form of malnutrition. In addition, the childcare gap disproportionately affects women, who spend substantially more time than men on unpaid domestic and care work, constraining their participation in paid employment; only 32.7% of women participate in the labor force, and only 7% of women are employed in the formal sector, outside of which they do not benefit from existing social protections. For women in low-paid and informal employment in India, particularly migrant workers, access to safe and affordable childcare can be especially difficult. Without reliable childcare, mothers may have to take young children to unsafe workplaces, withdraw from paid work entirely, or rely on other family members, including older girls, to provide care.
Mobile Creches addresses these challenges by providing quality childcare while also strengthening the wider systems needed to make early childhood development services accessible and sustainable. They do so through parenting and community engagement, training of frontline childcare workers, government partnerships, research, and policy advocacy. Their Dulaar Parenting Programme works with parents and caregivers from pregnancy through the first three years of a child's life, strengthening responsive caregiving, nutrition, and early stimulation.
With support from Be That Girl Foundation, Mobile Creches are expanding both the provision and enabling environment for quality childcare. In 2025–26 alone, BTG support enabled five childcare centres (four Workplace and one Urban) in Delhi NCR to provide quality childcare to 762 children, while government partnerships supported approximately 84,000 children and wider community initiatives reached nearly 100,000 people with messages on early childhood development, nutrition and responsive parenting.
Beyond direct services, BTG support contributes to strengthening government partnerships, frontline ECD capacity, community engagement and policy advocacy including efforts that helped secure childcare budget allocations in Haryana and Jharkhand. Together, BTG and Mobile Creches are working towards positioning quality childcare as essential social and economic infrastructure that supports children's development and expands opportunities for women and families.
Key numbers
REACH (2025)
An estimated 99,000 people reached with key messages on Early Childhood Development, responsive parenting, and nutrition, and over 16,000 linked to essential government schemes and entitlements.
5 childcare centers run and over 4,800 supported by Mobile Creches.
84,000 children supported through MC’s government partnerships, and 762 children supported directly in Mobile Creche Centres.
427 children, including 205 girls, provided with extra diet in MC Creches to improve and maintain their nutritional status.
1,683 individual parents from 1,332 families were reached through the Dulaar Parenting Programme, including 515 pregnant women, 896 mothers, and 272 fathers.
IMPACT (2025)
87% of children who continuously attended MC Centres in 2025-26 improved or maintained their weight-for-age nutritional status.
99% immunization achieved in MC Centre children.
92% of young women partaking in the Dulaar parenting programme hold a Mother Child Protection card, up from 61%.
