Ask any techie who is a young parent about the one facility that is needed in Technopark and he/she will likely tell you that it’s a crèche! Many of them – and their toddlers too – can now breathe a sigh of relief. Technopark finally gets a day care centre on campus thanks to the enterprising women of the city chapter of eWIT [Empowering women in IT], a forum for women who work in IT and ITes industries.
CC-Hub (Child Care-Hub), the beautiful and colourfully done-up centre is the brainchild of some of Technopark’s top women executives such as Sindhuja Varma, head of Learning and Development, Allianz, Hema Menon, centre head, UST Global, Radhika V., a manager at Allianz, and Rani Ramesh, managing director, Excentia. The crèche was designed by Sumi Shaji of S Squared Architects, herself a mother of two. “Statistics clearly point to the fact that a lot of women leave work or move on to less challenging and less rewarding jobs when they become mothers. While a crèche will not tackle this problem fully, knowing that your child is safe and within arms-reach will certainly help women stay in their jobs longer. This is of core interest for eWIT and for all employers who wish to not lose capable workforce at the prime of their career,” says Sindhuja, president of eWIT.
The crèche is only for children between the ages of one and two-and-a-half and intake is limited to 25, per shift. eWIT is partnering with Kudumbasree for the initiative and as such the crèche will be staffed by women of local Kudumbasree units who have been given special training in child care, health and safety, hygiene, first aid and emergency response, customer facing skills and the likes. A USP of CC-Hub is that it has a comfy and private nursing room for mothers to breastfeed their babies.
Another is kid-sized toilets, meant for toilet-training the children. Additionally, babysitting facilities are available on an hourly basis for parents who register for the facility in advance. A paediatrician will visit the centre every fortnight.
In a move that will be welcomed by many parents, the crèche is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Also, the crèche has surveillance cameras, the live feeds of which parents can access on their mobile phones.
The crèche, which is at Thejaswini (Annexe) building, is set to open its doors towards the end of the month. E-mail:crechetptvm@gmail.com; childcarehub@gmail.com. Contact: 9645990002
