After our recent visit to the Calcutta Kids team in Fakir Bagan, one word kept coming to mind: Commitment.

Over the last year, our community health workers and other staff have shown time and again just how committed they are to the well-being of beneficiaries and to maintaining strong, trusted relationships with them.

Often this has meant going above and beyond the job description of providing basic medical care and counseling.

The Calcutta Kids field team made us see how our immunization partnership with the Indian government was undermining beneficiaries’ trust, and compelled us to find a better strategy. Their advocacy led to a more sustainable solution for fully immunizing beneficiaries and keeping their trust.

They identified beneficiaries’ unique needs and delivered outside-the-box support to get those needs met. Their personalized care meant that women like Rifat, Nikita, Soniya, Manisha, and Hamida have healthy babies and ongoing support despite tremendous complications.

They embraced opportunities for additional knowledge and skills building. Their enthusiasm for learning has strengthened the services they provide our beneficiaries.

Along with our appreciation for the commitment of our staff, we also deeply appreciate the commitment of you, our supporters. Without you, none of our achievements would be possible.

Read more about our work this year in the Calcutta Kids 2025 Annual Report

With gratitude,

Evangeline Ambat & Noah Levinson
Co-Directors, Calcutta Kids

To make a donation, please visit calcuttakids.org/donate.

The post Calcutta Kids 2025 Annual Report first appeared on Calcutta Kids.

Kanchan S., a Calcutta Kids beneficiary and mom of three, has had tuberculosis twice. Even with treatment, Kanchan continues to experience health complications from TB.

Thankfully, access to vaccines means that Kanchan’s children can be spared the suffering she’s endured. Through Calcutta Kids, Kanchan has vaccinated all three of her kids to protect them from devastating diseases like TB, polio, measles, rubella, and hepatitis.

Yet somehow, we find ourselves in a world where vaccine skepticism has become mainstream.

So, let’s do a reality check: Over the past 50 years, global immunization efforts have saved an estimated 154 million lives worldwide. Of those lives saved, the majority — about 101 million — were infants.

We’re proud to be part of that legacy. For the past 20 years, Calcutta Kids has been committed to fully immunizing young children in our program at no cost to families.

Each week, Calcutta Kids community health workers use our database to see which children are due for immunizations and call families to invite them to our weekly immunization clinic. At the clinic, our clinical team checks each child, provides counseling about the immunization benefits and potential side effects (when relevant), and administers immunizations.

In 2024, 94% of Calcutta Kids children were fully immunized — a vaccination rate that is, sadly, unique. In India at large, on average only 76% of children are fully immunized. Even though the Indian government provides vaccines, their supply is unreliable. Families often wait hours in government vaccination lines only to be told the vaccines ran out.

That’s why child immunization is at the heart of Calcutta Kids’ work — and now more than ever, we need your help to keep it going.

In 2023, the Indian Academy of Pediatrics added new vaccines to its child immunization schedule. As a result, the cost to fully immunize a child is now 10x what it once was.

While this update aimed to prevent even more diseases, it’s now incredibly costly for organizations like ours to achieve full immunization.

Thank you so much for your support, which makes it possible for children like Kanchan’s to receive life-saving vaccinations and have healthy, full lives.

With warmest holiday wishes,

Evangeline Ambat & Noah Levinson
Co-Directors, Calcutta Kids

The post Vaccines Save Lives. Period. first appeared on Calcutta Kids.

Here’s a truth we’ve known for some time: community health workers are the heroes of Calcutta Kids. They earn our beneficiaries’ trust, get to know their families, and provide them with life-saving counseling, education, and care.

In that spirit, we’re thrilled to share that we have promoted four community health workers to the leadership team. Calcutta Kids has benefited from the knowledge, ingenuity, and compassion of these women for many years: Laxmi (19 years), Munni (16 years), Neelam (11 years), and Tulika (7 years). This promotion is a recognition of their expertise and commitment to the work. It’s also a vote of confidence that they can provide strategic leadership to the organization and guide the team as managers and decision-makers.

In Fakir Bagan, it isn’t common to see women in positions of leadership or power. During our visit in December, we spent time paving the way for the culture shift we want to see as Laxmi, Munni, Neelam, and Tulika step into their new roles. This meant helping the staff see that these women now have the authority to make decisions — and helping the women themselves see that too.

Each one has a vision for how to make our work more effective, and each shared what this promotion means to them.

Laxmi, who will oversee data interpretation and implementation, said, “I want to ensure that things are always updated and kept modern at CK.” Meanwhile, Tulika wants to focus on skill-building for community health workers: “I want the team to make their counseling techniques more personal and not just take it as completing a task, so that even more beneficiaries reach out to CK for any support they need.” Munni and Neelam described how this promotion feels like a huge milestone in their lives and careers. They feel proud to apply what they have learned at Calcutta Kids to their home lives, and they hope to inspire their children.

We’re eager to see all that Laxmi, Munni, Neelam, and Tulika will do as leaders. Their real-world experience is priceless, and no one is better suited to strengthen and sustain the organization. Please join us in welcoming them to the leadership team!

Read more about our achievements and challenges in the Calcutta Kids 2024 Annual Report

With gratitude,

Evangeline Ambat & Noah Levinson
Co-Directors, Calcutta Kids

To make a donation, please visit calcuttakids.org/donate.

The post Calcutta Kids 2024 Annual Report first appeared on Calcutta Kids.

We drew from brilliant public health experts like Jon Rohde, a Harvard-trained pediatrician and public health specialist who has dedicated his life and work to the global south. Jon served as both head of UNICEF in India and Special Advisor to the Executive Director of UNICEF.

Jon has had a hand in some of the most impactful public health advancements of the last century: universal immunization, oral rehydration therapy to treat life-threatening diarrhea, and growth monitoring and promotion, which distills pediatric care into a few essential activities that can be rolled out with little medical infrastructure. These advancements form the bedrock of Calcutta Kids’ work with children. Jon has been an advisor to Calcutta Kids for the last 15 years.

Needless to say, Jon’s opinion means a lot. Recently, Jon visited Calcutta Kids for the first time since our local team stepped in to lead day-to-day operations. Based on what he observed, Jon doubled his annual donation. Here’s what he had to say about his visit.

Dear colleagues and friends of Calcutta Kids (CK),

I am writing to share with you my findings on my 5th or 6th visit to CK recently after a lapse of 5 years. The program has succeeded beyond my fondest dreams, with now several thousand children from the slum community of Fakir Bagan grown healthy due to the efforts of Noah and Evangeline and their dedicated local team, which manages and implements all CK programs. The entire community owns and supports CK with pride.

My partner, Ruth, and I spent the day in Fakir Bagan trailing health workers, observing the clinic and the central activity of child weighing and counseling. We sat on the floor of a 3×3 meter room with two mothers and their kids while health workers sensitively probed for factors that could negatively influence their growth. Later, we attended an exuberant mothers’ meeting where all watched the preparation of a simple yet nutritious meal that they then shared with their kids. It was inspiring.

The local CK team now owns daily operations, and CK runs as smoothly as ever, with only weekly check-ins with Noah and Evangeline in the U.S. The team of health workers and support staff function as a cohesive unit and work closely with community members. Their efforts are evident in improved drainage, water protection, and housing over the past two decades. The recent development of a program to teach unmarried adolescent girls health and life skills was initiated by the community with support from CK. This program, Ashayein, is a source of pride for many and proof of what’s possible when community members have agency.

In recent years, 100% of mothers have delivered in a government hospital, up from only 15% when the program started in 2005. I spoke with one grateful mother who suffered a ruptured uterus and would certainly have died had she been at home. With monthly education sessions and home visits, the percentage of low birthweight babies has dropped to about 12%, from over 30% previously. Comparably, infants’ survival has dramatically increased.

Amazingly, of 600 children under 3 years old currently in the program, only 1% — a mere 7 children — are significantly malnourished. I saw the robust data collection system CK uses, and I watched the team use this data to monitor children’s health and provide individualized care. Children receive 3 home visits per month, food assistance, and a deep analysis of the family dynamics that may contribute to undernutrition and poor growth. This is a rare demonstration of the power of growth monitoring and promotion, so often unappreciated in public health.

I have one deep concern: while ALL CK kids are FULLY immunized — itself unique in India — the program is vitally dependent on continued financial support from abroad. I decided on the spot to double my annual contribution to CK, and I urge you to consider giving as much as you can.

The work of this small, dedicated team has been possible as a result of your generosity, widely recognized by the CK staff. I encourage you to make your own visit to Fakir Bagan and see this incredible organization at work. You have much to be proud of!

Thank you sincerely,

Jon E. Rohde

We are incredibly proud of all that Jon sees in Calcutta Kids: a locally-run program that provides life-saving and life-changing support for families.

And we are so grateful for you. Your contributions better the lives of the hundreds of families we work with. Please continue to give generously to support our work in 2025 and beyond.

With warmest holiday wishes and many thanks,

Evangeline Ambat & Noah Levinson
Co-Directors, Calcutta Kids

The post A personal appeal from public health expert, Jon Rohde first appeared on Calcutta Kids.

The December graduation ceremony of Ashayein, the Calcutta Kids Adolescent Girls Program, was a true celebration. Ashayein means hope, and at this event honoring the first cohort to graduate, the sense of hope was palpable. At the end of the ceremony, graduates danced and sang “Ashayein,” our program’s theme song, borrowed from a famous Hindi movie. We’re so lucky we could be there in person to share in the joy.

The ceremony signaled the power these young women hold and the promise of what lies ahead. For some, like Tanisha, this event also marked how far they’ve come.

When Tanisha was born in 2007, postpartum depression and a breast complication left Tanisha’s mother with little breast milk for her baby. The family supplemented with infant formula but only had unclean water to mix it with, and Tanisha got a diarrhea infection. She lost so much weight that she became severely emaciated. Her family feared she might be cursed.

Tanisha’s parents brought her to Calcutta Kids, where our medical team took emergency action to save her life and coached her family on how to support her nutrition and growth. With our intervention, Tanisha quickly transformed into a healthy baby.

Did we perform miracles? No. We provided a few simple things: basic medical care, nutrition counseling, supplements. But, in Fakir Bagan, that’s often all you need to save a life.

So yes, when Tanisha graduated from our adolescent girls program, we got a little emotional. She’s now a thriving teenager, excited to pursue a career as a police officer.

As always, we loved getting time in person with colleagues and beneficiaries during our trip. We’re also delighted that more and more friends, old and new, are choosing to visit Fakir Bagan to see Calcutta Kids in action. Our brilliant, committed local team takes great pride in showing visitors what we do and the impact our programs have.

We hope you’ll consider visiting Fakir Bagan, too. In the meantime, you’re there in spirit — strengthening Calcutta Kids and improving the lives of so many.

Read more about our achievements and challenges in the Calcutta Kids 2023 Annual Report

With gratitude,

Evangeline Ambat & Noah Levinson
Co-Directors, Calcutta Kids

To make a donation, please visit calcuttakids.org/donate.

The post Calcutta Kids 2023 Annual Report first appeared on Calcutta Kids.

That all changed when Neha joined the Calcutta Kids Adolescent Girls Program (Ashayein). Through our program, she learned about the importance of education, being financially independent, and setting personal goals. She felt motivated to change the course of her life and, with the help of our program leaders, she sparked that same motivation in her mother. Together, they convinced Neha’s grandmother to allow Neha to continue her education.

Our Adolescent Girls Program cultivates a sense of opportunity, self-worth, and self-reliance. Participants learn life lessons and skills related to nutrition, menstruation, delaying pregnancy, recognizing abuse, self-defense, and more. We get women professionals in medicine, law enforcement, education, and engineering to talk about their careers. And this year, given community interest, we started the program with a second cohort of girls.

“I saved my close friend from a cyber crime abuser. With the help of the Calcutta Kids support team, I learned how to handle the situation. ” — Soni, Ashayein program participant

Calcutta Kids’ investment in adolescent girls also lays the foundation for their health in adulthood — and the health of their future families.

Investing in adolescent girls is one of the most powerful ways to improve maternal and child health outcomes. We started the Adolescent Girls Program when pregnant women and new moms told us they wished they had had information about health, nutrition, and family planning much earlier. It makes sense; with the right knowledge and skills, girls can develop into healthier women, have healthier pregnancies, deliver healthier babies, and raise healthier children.

Through our Maternal Health Program, Calcutta Kids directly supports the health of pregnant women and their babies.

We provide pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum services and counseling that most women in Fakir Bagan would otherwise not receive. As a result, pregnant women in our program are far more likely than other local women (Non-CK) to have healthy birth weight babies. Birth weight is a proxy for overall health and well-being, and a higher birth weight is associated with better outcomes.

Our Child Health Program helps young children thrive.

We provide young children with supplementary nutrition, specialized medical care, growth monitoring, diarrhea treatment, and other services to combat malnutrition and support growth. So it’s not surprising that malnutrition among children in our program has trended down from 2009 to 2022. In India, malnutrition is a major cause of death among children under 5 years old.

Calcutta Kids’ holistic approach works.

We’ve lowered rates of death and chronic disease among mothers and babies, helped break the cycle of intergenerational malnutrition, and guided adolescent girls to come into their power.

Neha, by the way, is now in her second year of undergraduate college. She wants to become a lawyer, and she has a slogan she now lives by: “The goal we set should not be abandoned under any circumstances.” Following Neha’s wisdom, we recommit to our own goal to uplift women, children, and adolescent girls in Fakir Bagan.

Thank you for joining us in this commitment and for making this goal possible.
Please continue to give generously to support our important work in 2024 and beyond.

We and the 770 families we work with in Fakir Bagan are so grateful for your generosity.

With warmest holiday wishes and many thanks,

Evangeline Ambat & Noah Levinson
Co-Directors, Calcutta Kids

The post Freedom for Girls, Well-Being for a Lifetime first appeared on Calcutta Kids.

After three years away from India due to Covid, our family — Evangeline, Noah, our 4-year-old son, Zubin, and our 16-month-old daughter, Anushka — traveled to Fakir Bagan and reunited with the Calcutta Kids team in December 2022.

It was a marvelous reunion. We saw healthy babies, growing children, grateful pregnant women and mothers, and eager and inspired adolescent girls. We saw a Calcutta Kids team with local leadership and vision, confident and capable management, and a commitment to support the health and well-being of people in the community. We saw evidence of the strong relationships Calcutta Kids had built over the years, strengthened even more during Covid as the community looked to our team as a beacon of light during very challenging times. Even among our newer health workers, whom we accompanied on some home counseling visits, we saw a competence and commitment that let us know our community health worker training program is working.

We applaud our team and couldn’t be prouder of all they have achieved and continue to achieve even through periods of difficulty and hardship. We are grateful for the love, care, and dedication they show the organization, our work, and our beneficiaries.

There was so much worth celebrating — and that’s exactly what we did. Together with the Calcutta Kids team and their families, we had a wonderful event marking all that we have accomplished: surviving the peak of Covid, the life-saving health services and mental and emotional support we provided during the pandemic, and 17 years working with the Fakir Bagan community to achieve positive health outcomes for women and children.

Even though you couldn’t attend our joyous event, we hope that you too will take a moment to celebrate Calcutta Kids’ achievements, which are only possible with your support.

Read more about our achievements and challenges in the Calcutta Kids 2022 Annual Report

As always, thank you for being a partner in this important work.

Sincerely,

Evangeline Ambat
Noah Levinson

To make a donation, please visit calcuttakids.org/donate.

The post Calcutta Kids 2022 Annual Report first appeared on Calcutta Kids.

Among the achievements of Calcutta Kids, one that has been most significant has been the reduction in the percentage of children suffering from severe malnutrition in our catchment area from 12.3% of children in 2009 to 3.3% in 2013 — a reduction of 73%ⁱ. Just as significant, that low rate of severe malnutrition has not increased over the past dozen years.

Our team’s careful analysis of the data we collectⁱⁱ indicates that a vital contributing factor has been the monthly Growth Monitoring and Promotion (GMP) program. Our system assures that any child failing to gain adequate weight from one month to the next receives intensive and highly individualized health, nutritional, and behavioral attention. Thus, GMP serves as both a measurement tool to assess the impact of our program and a critical safety net to protect our most vulnerable children.

During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Calcutta Kids had to transition most of our in-person interactions to virtual ones with the exception of immunizations — for which we employed rigorous COVID-19 protocols. With the monthly in-person growth monitoringⁱⁱⁱ paused out of necessity, we were deeply concerned about potential increases in severe child malnutrition — this on top of the direct effects of the pandemic.

To our surprise and great delight, we found, upon resumption of the growth monitoring, only a minimal increase in overall child malnutrition rates and no increase in the rate of severe malnutrition. In discussions together with the community health workers and members of the community, we tried to understand how this was possible. The following insights emerged:

• Community members retained — and utilized during the crisis — the intensive growth-promoting information which has been offered to families over the last 17 years;

• Relatedly, beneficiary families with an older child who had already benefited from Calcutta Kids interventions were well-versed in the “promotion” aspect — the key growth promoting messages — of GMP;

• Families and the community implemented improved hygiene practices during the pandemic, resulting in less diarrheal disease — a major contributor to malnutrition;

• The children were consuming healthier home-cooked meals, because there was less money in the household during the lockdown to buy junk food from local markets;

• During the lockdown, there was increased family support; mothers were not alone at home with the children;

• Throughout the pandemic, the Calcutta Kids health workers tirelessly maintained virtual contact with families — and were often the first point of contact for these families when any health-related crisis arose. This had the effect of further deepening the trust between beneficiaries and health workers. Through such virtual communication meaningful “growth promotion” was able to take place even when “growth monitoring” could not.

There is, in sum, much to be grateful for and hopeful about. Given our data driven approach, we will spend the coming year digging still deeper to understand more about the “why” behind this success. We will use community participation and both qualitative and quantitative methods to further examine this question and then make necessary programmatic changes to maintain and increase the effectiveness and efficiency of our efforts in Fakir Bagan.

In these efforts and with everything else Calcutta Kids is doing, your support is what makes it possible. We at Calcutta Kids — along with the 725 families with which we work — are so grateful for your generosity and your shared commitment to uplifting the women, children and adolescent girls in Fakir Bagan. Please continue to give generously to support our important work in 2023 and beyond.

With warmest holiday wishes and many thanks,

Noah Levinson & Evangeline Ambat
Co-Directors, Calcutta Kids

[i] Read about our impact: https://www.calcuttakids.org/impact/
[ii] Learn more about our digital health platform and our approach to data based decision making: https://www.calcuttakids.org/calcutta-kids-avni-for-maternal-and-child-health-program/; https://www.calcuttakids.org/how-we-work/
[iii] Learn about our child health interventions here: https://www.calcuttakids.org/child-health/

The post Beating the Odds: A Story of Growth first appeared on Calcutta Kids.

In the first half of 2021, the Covid-19 Delta variant engulfed India and caused a level of turmoil that no one saw coming.

We at Calcutta Kids had no choice but to throw our playbook out the window. Instead, we asked ourselves: What does the Fakir Bagan community need most right now, and what can we do to meet that need? 

• They needed to survive. So we provided food and, when the time came, coordinated vaccinations for our staff and beneficiaries. 

• Despite the pandemic chaos, they still needed to have healthy pregnancies, safe deliveries, and guidance to support their children’s well-being and growth. So we began providing virtual medical care and counseling, and coordinated in-person care when necessary. 

• They needed emotional support. So our community health workers served as a lifeline. 

Calcutta Kids showed that our entire team can pivot when faced with even the most daunting challenges and uncertainty.

Read more about our achievements and challenges in the Calcutta Kids 2021 Annual Report

As always, thank you for being a partner in this important work.

Sincerely,

Evangeline Ambat
Noah Levinson

To make a donation, please visit calcuttakids.org/donate.

The post Calcutta Kids 2021 Annual Report first appeared on Calcutta Kids.

But over the course of this trying period, we learned that while we are small, we are also mighty. And our might comes from the relationships we’ve forged and fostered over our 16 years — relationships with our beneficiaries, our team, our partners, and you.

Because of these relationships, the pandemic didn’t derail us; rather, we were able to sustain and deepen our connections with existing beneficiaries, welcome new beneficiaries, and reimagine the ways in which we support women, children, and adolescent girls in Fakir Bagan.

Here are a few specific ways in which the special, tight knit Calcutta Kids family we’ve created with your support has enabled us to evolve, grow, and make an impact over the last year.

Our beneficiaries became unofficial Calcutta Kids ambassadors

In 2020, to protect the health of our team and the community, we indefinitely paused in-person outreach to and registration of new beneficiaries. This left us without a formal pathway to explain what we do or to learn when someone needs our services.

Then something remarkable happened: Our beneficiaries took it upon themselves to promote Calcutta Kids within Fakir Bagan. When a woman became pregnant or delivered a baby, beneficiaries let our team know who to reach out to and how. Since then, our team has registered many new beneficiaries this way and, bolstered by the recommendation from friends and neighbors, has quickly established bonds with these women and earned their trust.

Our staff kept their jobs and remained a lifeline for beneficiaries

During a time when many organizations have been forced to lay off staff, we have — with contributions from donors like you — kept our team intact. As a result, our community health workers have continued to provide beneficiaries with essential health services, health information, and emotional support throughout the pandemic. Many beneficiaries have told us that maintaining this connection with our team has helped them feel less lonely during this otherwise isolating time.

For our staff, most of whom live in the slum area where they work, employment has meant financial security and a sense of purpose during this period of uncertainty, fear, and listlessness.

Our partners strengthened our ability to meet beneficiaries’ needs

Because of the rise in domestic abuse during the pandemic, we partnered with the Mudita Foundation to train our community health workers on how to identify abuse among our beneficiaries and connect them with appropriate services. Since then, our community health workers have incorporated these principles into their counseling, leading one beneficiary to disclose the physical and emotional abuse she had been experiencing at home. Our team was prepared to provide support in dealing with and healing from that traumatic situation, and worked with the Mudita Foundation to identify the appropriate next steps.

You continued to invest in us and the families we serve

As you know, a few months ago we jumped at an opportunity to become a COVID-19 vaccination site for all eligible beneficiaries. Your support has made this and everything we do possible. We’re so grateful for your generosity, ideas, feedback, genuine care, and commitment to uplifting women, children, and adolescent girls in Fakir Bagan. In short, we’re grateful you’re part of the Calcutta Kids family.

Going forward, we plan to build on the lessons learned this year and sustain the innovations that have worked well, like providing time-sensitive health services virtually when beneficiaries travel back to their home villages. We look forward to accomplishing even more together in 2022.

With warmest holiday wishes and many thanks,

Noah Levinson & Evangeline Ambat
Co-Directors, Calcutta Kids

The post Together We Make Calcutta Kids Possible first appeared on Calcutta Kids.