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urturing Neighbourhoods

Nurturing Neighbourhoods

Shaping cities for young children and their families

The Nurturing Neighbourhoods initiative focuses on enabling healthy and supportive environments for young children and their caregivers in Indian cities. The program encourages cities to incorporate the 95 cm (height of a 3-year-old) lens in the design of public spaces while also ensuring parental wellbeing.

Photo Credits: Visakha KA/ WRI India

The Journey So Far

The Nurturing Neighbourhoods (NN) Challenge, led by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Smart Cities Mission in collaboration with Van Leer Foundation and WRI India supported Indian cities to incorporate a focus on neighbourhood-level improvements that promote healthy early childhood development  and parental wellbeing (0-5-year-old children and their parents). The next iteration of the program, Nurturing Neighbourhoods 2.0, will deepen efforts in select cities and states and enable a network of cities in India to adopt this approach.​ 

Nurturing Neighbourhoods Reach & Impact

180
Public Spaces
Transformed
2.3 lakh
Young Children
Benefitted
1.3 million
Users in Benefit
Zone
3000+
Officials & Frontline Workers Trained

The Need

With over 37 million children under age 5 living in urban areas across India (Census 2011), an early childhood and caregiver-centric approach to city planning, design, and management helps Indian cities achieve goals of economic growth, health, safety, and sustainability.

Adopting an early childhood lens can help city leaders, policy makers and urban practitioners envision safe, inclusive and resilient cities for all.

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Key Milestones of the Nurturing Neighbourhoods Program

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