Links for Children

The Country Programme, 2008-2012 (for Children)
Gov. of India – UNICEF Programme of Co-operation

Gov. of India and UNICEF Sign 5 Year Plan for children

Knowledge Management Satellite Centre

In Photo : Dr Prakash Gurnani in workshop

Workshop : April 30, 2008

The upcoming Knowledge Management satellite Centre (KMSC) at the International Library and Cultural Centre (ILCC), Ranchi will serve as a platform for NGOs, students, academicians, researchers as well as the community as a whole to bring up issues related to the rights of children. It will serve as a common point to enhance their knowledge on mother and child development related issues particularly in the context of Ranchi urban area. This centre will also function as a cell for developing strategies for participation of children and youth in matters of survival, development and protection of children.

Child Reporters

Under the aegis of the KMSC a forum of “Child Reporters” will be created from various schools in Ranchi who will report on child related issues and also advocate for the same. They will finally emerge as the “Voices of children” in Ranchi.
The Workshop on Child Reporters
About 95 students from 11 schools took part in a workshop, to orient school children to be child reporters, held at ILCC. The purpose was to:

• Interact with school children and to orient them on children related issues
• motivate them to take up issues for reporting and to have an open house discussion with them
• screening the “on the spot reports” written by them on child related issues they felt strongly about

The selected children shall attend a three day camp on creative writing in the month of June. The child reporters would also get an opportunity to interact with senior journalists of leading newspapers in Ranchi who would help them in polishing their writing skills as well as teach them how to report. These children would also undertake advocacy for child rights through a forum created out of them.

The program started with the welcome note given by Mrs. Jyoti Bajaj, trustee, ILCC Ranchi.
After this Mr. Milind Borde, Secretary, ILCC, addressed the gathering and talked about this initiative of creating a resource cum knowledge management centre with the support of UNICEF. He also talked about the evolution of UNICEF and the commendable work it has been doing for children. He introduced Dr. Prakash Gurnani, State Representative, UNICEF who was the next facilitator.
On behalf of UNICEF, Dr. Prakash Gurnani welcomed all the students and the teachers of various schools. He stressed on the need to make the world made fit for children. He tried to explain the importance of looking at things with a broader perspective and to work towards bringing about a positive change. He added that the children from the different schools present there would become the agents of change. He encouraged the children by saying that the fact that they have come to the workshop is the first step towards change that they have taken. He talked about Declaration 7 from the Convention of the Rights of the Child which talks about to making the world fit for children. It stresses upon the following points -

• Put children first
• Eradicate poverty (all the government and the NGO sector should invest on children basically their time energy and money)
• Leave no child behind
• Care for every child
• Educate every child
• Protect children from harm and exploitation
• Protect children from war
• Combat HIV/AIDS
• LISTEN TO CHILDREN and ensure participation
• Protection of earth.

Next he talked about the MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS. He was of the view that unless we set up goal we cannot move forward. The few goals that he mentioned was

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (he questioned to the children that have we ever given a thought that while we are having a luxurious meal at café coffee day some children out their have skipped a meal. We are the haves and we should give our half for the have-nots.)
• Achieve universal primary education
• Promote gender equality and empower women (he informed the children about high female foeticide rates and also high drop out from schools in certain states in India)
• Reduce child mortality.
• Improve maternal health
• Combat HIV/AIDS malaria and other diseases.
• Ensure environmental sustainability (to add impetus to this point he shared with the children the state of people who get only two pots of water after a waiting time of two hours)
• Develop a global partnership

Following this, he put forward a question to the children whether India would achieve MDGs by 2015 which brought out different opinions of the children. It was good to see the enthusiasm and awareness of the participants. The opinions drawn mostly suggested that they felt that the pace of achieving the MDGs was slow in India. Some blamed it on the political scenario while some on the lack of committed people in India.
He closed this session by asking the children whether they will become the voice and the force for the children in Ranchi.

Dr. Suranjeen Prasad from CINI interacted with the children and asked them whether they were news savvy and whether they had ever read a good story. He motivated the children to write such a story that can change the life of a person. Next Mrs. Tanvi Jha from CINI gave a brief description of the topics on which the children had to write articles of maximum 200 words.

The various topics were

• Girl child (female infanticide) she asked the children whether they have met someone who are not in school and the answer was yes (domestic workers.)
• Education
• Environment (pollution, drinking water problems,)
• HIV/AIDS
• Food (there are children who are poor and hungry. Then she put up a question whether the government is doing something about it. And the answer was mid day meal.)
• Child labor

PANEL DISCUSSION
The panelists for the discussion were Mrs. Jyoti Bajaj, Mrs. Sukanya Subramaniam, and Dr. Suranjeen Prasad. Dr. Gurnani chaired the session. They invited queries from the participants and the following discussion ensued.

Student 1 : “What can I do for children who cannot go to school?”
Ms. Sukanya Subramaniam: They could take out one hour in a week to teach out of school children.

Student 2 : “How do we make our parents understand when they disagree with us spending time in taking up such activities?”
Ms. Sukanya Subramaniam : One person cannot change the world and every little drop makes an ocean. Hence the little bit that we do can lead to a good end result. Start with creating awareness in your own homes and neighborhood may be by teaching the children who come to their homes as domestics workers.

Dr. Prakash Gurnani : It is the most challenging job to convince the adults. Adults learn by experience or through others experience. You can convince your parents to visit an NGO working on that issue so that they can see it with their own eyes and get convinced. Also you can start a discussion when any social issue is screened on television or can talk about social issues that come in the written media .

Student 3 : “How can we pitch in to eradicate the practices of keeping children as domestic servants, child marriages etc.?”

Ms. Sukanya Subramaniam : One can convince their parents and take them into confidence to speak to the maid or to tell the maid about the laws that punishes on early marriages.

Dr. Suranjeen Prasad : We all know that a girl’s body should be fully developed before she could deliver a child. So we can talk about this matter to the girl and her in laws and take them into confidence and persuade them to send the girl to study.

Dr. Prakash Gurnani : Jharkhand has the highest percentage of child marriages. When we are talking about bringing about a change we are not only talking about financial help but we are looking beyond it. We begin in our house and further moving into the society. 18 girls got together and stopped child marriages in a slum of 1.5 lac population in one of the cities in India. In order to do this firstly they understood the issues related to child marriages and secondly they came together for this cause.

Student 4 : “What about those girls who are already married?””
Dr. Suranjeen Prasad : Delay the first child through contraception. These girls can go to informal schools which would give them opportunity for better future employment. This can happen only after taking into confidence the girls, her in-laws and parents.

Student 5 : “If a child does not have any parents and guardian to work and the child is forced to work then what should we do?”
Ms. Sukanya Subramanian : Children should be given an opportunity to study and get a good job.

Student 6 : “I know a girl who has come from a village and is not able to cope up with the curriculum of the school. “
Ms. Sukanya Subramanian : We have schools running for such students where they can go and such classes would definitely help them to cope up with their studies.

Interaction with teachers
A team consisting of CINI, UNICEF and ILCC cultural committee interacted with the teachers of the participant schools simultaneous to the session on panel discussion. It was agreed upon that a creative writing camp for the children would be held post summer vacations (June 1st week tentatively). The teachers were informed that a letter of consent from the guardians for this camp has to be procured by the school. In addition to this the teachers were requested to encourage the child reporters and to help them if they need it.

Creative writing camp for child reporters

July 19-20, 2008, Venue: International Library & Cultural Centre

Participants : 30 short listed child reporters, Ms. Jyoti Bajaj (Managing Trustee, ILCC), Dr. Suranjeen Prasad (In Charge, CINI Jharkhand), Ms. Tanvi Jha (Research and Documentation Associate, CINI Jharkhand), Mr. Vishnu Rajgadia (BCC Expert, CINI Jharkhand), Mr Ravi Prakash (Editor, I-Next), Mr Amit Gupta (Senior Correspondent, The Telegraph), Mr. Vijay Tiru (Nav Bharat Jagriti Kendra), Ms. Vandita (Citizens Foundation), Mr Mohammad Shakeel (Manthan Yuva Santhan) and the ILCC staff.

The creative writing camp : This camp was held under the aegis of The Knowledge Management Satellite Centre (KMSC), a centre meant to provide a knowledge base on all children issues. This upcoming centre in Ranchi City will also provide a platform for children to voice their issues and work towards bringing about a positive change. The Child Reporters Programme under the KMSC aims at positioning the children as advocacy agents for change and the workshop was the first step towards this direction. The oriented and trained child reporters shall undergo continuous mentoring till their creative writing skills are perfectly honed up and their reports present a strong message to the society as well as the policy makers.

The Day 1 began at 8 am with a welcome note by Ms. Jyoti Bajaj. She congratulated the children for being selected to be trained as Child Reporters. They were then briefed about the activities for the day and how they would be benefited being child reporters. Ms. Tanvi Jha then provided an overview of the knowledge management centre to the children. The concept of child reporters and the objective of the workshop were detailed out. Out of the various pressing issues related to children in the context of Ranchi City 3 issues were chosen – environment (resource recovery and waste management), child labour and education.

The media persons talked to children about the ways of writing a well researched and well articulated article. They told them how are where to look for primary information while writing a report on the selected child related issues. The media resource persons then asked the children to write an on the spot report on the issue of their choice. Following this they provided individual feedbacks to all the children on how to brush up their writing skills and create a write up that could be used as an advocacy tool.

Non governmental organizations working in Ranchi Urban Area on these issues were invited to give technical inputs for the workshop. The child reporters were taken on field visits by the NGO personnel so that they could get hands on experience of the field realities.

The sites visited were:-
1. Hindpiri, Mujahidnagar, Nizamnagar (Issue- Child Labour, with Manthan Yuva Sansthan)

2. Near Loreto School (Issue- Environment / waste management with NBJK)

3. Daily market, Karbala Chowk, Islamnagar (Issue- Child education with Citizens Foundation)

The children interacted with the NGO personnel and got to know how they work on the above listed issues in the field. The child labours at Manthan’s Education Centre mingled with the child reporters. At the Citizen Foundation centre, the children got to know how the deprived urban children are mainstreamed to formal schools through bridge course. In the Nav Bharat Jagriti Kendra area door step collection of garbage and then the secondary dumping area in Ward No. 46 was showed to the children. They also interacted with the “Ward Parshad”, Ms. Minakshi Kujur and got to know more about the process of resource recovery in the area.

The day II basically focused on the final report writing by the children. These reports were then reviewed by CINI and the media persons. A follow up of the event was planned to be held on July 27, 2008 at ILCC. Media coverageThe programme received very good.

Tanvi Jha with child reporters

Vishnu Rajgadia, Ravi Prakash, Amit Gupta, Tanvi Jha, Jyoti Bajaj

Vishnu Rajgadia, Ravi Prakash and Amit Gupta

Child Reporters Workshop

Dr. Suranjeen with Child Reporters

Child Reporters Workshop, 19.07.2008

Mighty pens help fight child Labor

The Telegraph

Issues selected by Child Reporters

Issue- Education & Child Labor
Kumari Suman (St. Anna Girls School) Hindi
Vishal Kumar (Yagsda Satsang School) Hindi
Alka Bhagat (Yagsda Satsang School) Hindi
Neha Saw (Yagsda Satsang School) Hindi
Binita Goswami (Yagsda Satsang School) Hindi
Chunmun Routh (Yagsda Satsang School) Hindi
Manisha Pallavi (Yagsda Satsang School) Hindi
Tahseen Fatma (XA, St. Margarets Girls H.S.) Hindi
Jyoti Kumari (St. Margarets Girls H.S.) Hindi
Poonam Minz (St. Margarets Girls H.S.) Hindi
Shireen Azam (Jawahar Vidya Mandir) English
Swati Singh (Jawahar Vidya Mandir) English
Anamika Sen (Jawahar Vidya Mandir) English
Yukta Verma (Bishop Wescott GS) English
Pankhuri Priya (Bishop Wescott GS) English
Mayank Shekhar (VIII B, St. Anthony’s School) English
Vedika Tayal (Bridgeford School) English

Issue- Environment
Suravi Priya (Yagsda Satsang School) Hindi
Indu Bhushan Singh (St. Anthony’s School) English
Sachin Kumar Gupta (Bridgeford School) English
Raka Paul (Bishop Wescott GS) English
Hiya Singhal (Bishop Wescott GS) English

Issue- Under privileged Child
Ruchika Kerketta (Bishop Wescott GS) English
Kirti Manjusha (Bishop Wescott GS) English
Neha (Jawahar Vidya Mandir) English
Shashwant Konai (IX B, Bridgeford School) English
Eesha Bahl (DPS) English

A note for the Media Orientation of Child Reporters

The knowledge Management Satellite Cell (KMSC)
UNICEF in collaboration with the International Library & Cultural Centre (ILCC) and Child In Need Institute (CINI) has established the KMSC at ILCC premises. The objective of the Cell is to provide a platform for NGOs and students to bring up issues related to Rights of children and house resource materials on issues concerning children especially those related to education, health, nutrition, protection, water and sanitation etc. This Cell also proposes to develop strategies of participation of children and youth in matters of survival, development and protection of children.
The Child Reporters
Under the aegis of the KMSC a cadre of students has been envisaged to be capacity built as “Child Reporters”. These reporters from various schools will write and advocate on children issues in Ranchi. They will get a chance to work with Journalists of leading newspapers in Ranchi and to get their work published in leading newspapers. They will also be mentored by NGO personnel working on child related issues.
The expected outcome from the Child Reporters Programme:-

1. The Child Reporter will learn to look incisively at issues of children.
2. The child reporter will be capacity built on an advocacy tool in the form of creative writing.

The media orientation
Taking a step ahead from a Child Reporters Workshop held on April 30, 2008 a group of children (around 35) have been selected to be trained as child reporters. These children will be capacity built on creative writing, reporting style, deciding on a news peg and gaining in depth knowledge on the children related issue of their choice. The latter shall happen through the training programme as well as the planned field visits in association with various NGOs working on these issues.
Role of NGOs
The Child Reporters shall take up children related issues of their interest and report on the same. In order to give them hands on experience of the real situation at the field level, they shall be mentored by respective NGOs working in Ranchi Urban area on the selected issues. The NGOs shall:
Facilitate the field visit.
Provide relevant inputs so that the children can frame a story.
List of issues:
Child Labour, Child Education, Childhood malnutrition, Environment, Street Children or Rag pickers

CREATIVE WRITING CAMP FOR CHILD REPORTERS

Venue: ILCC, Ranchi
Date: July 19th - 20th, 2008 , 8:00 am
Welcome - Ms. Jyoti Bajaj, ILCC
Briefing on the camp - Ms. Tanvi Jha, CINI
Introduction of NGO and media persons
Orientation on creative writing/reporting
Ravi Prakash, Editor, I next
Amit Gupta, Senior Reporter, The Telegraph
Group division for field work with respective NGOs
Field work – Respective NGO personnel

Child Reporter Project

Project Name- Knowledge Management Satellite Centre
Area- Ranchi urban area
Partner- International Library and Cultural Centre (ILCC)
Objective- Establishing a knowledge dissemination hub for children, academicians, researchers and the general public focussed on mother and child development issues
Funded by- UNICEF

बाल पत्रकार परियोजना

चाइल्ड इन नीड इंस्टीट्यूट (सिनी) इंटरनेशनल लाइब्रेरी एंड कल्चरल सेंटर (आइएलसीसी) तथा यूनिसेफ ने यह अनूठी परियोजना शुरू की है. इसका उद्देश्य विभिन्न सामयिक मुद्दों पर बच्चों में जागरूकता पैदा करते हुए बारीकी से पड़ताल करने और उस पर लेखन के लिए प्रेरित करना है. इसके लिए के प्रमुख स्कूलों के लगभग 135 बच्चों की लिखित परीक्षा के आधार पर तीस बाल पत्रकारों का चयन किया गया. इन बच्चों को अंग्रेजी एवं हिंदी में सृजनात्मक लेखन का प्रिशक्षण दिया जा रहा हैं । साथ ही इन्हें बाल श्रमिक, बाल शिक्षा, बच्चों के कुपोषण, पर्यावरण, झुग्गियों व फुटपाथ के बच्चों तथा कचरा बिनने वाले बच्चों जैसे विषय पर रिपोर्ट लेखन का अवसर दिया जा रहा है. इस दौरान बच्चों को वरीय मीडियाकर्मियों एवं स्वयंसेवी कार्यकत्ताओं से संवाद का अवसर मिला है. इस परियोजना का उद्देश्य बच्चों को बाल पत्रकार के रूप में विकसित करके झारखंड के बच्चों की आवाज सामने लाना है.