Dr Prakash Gurnani in workshopThe 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.
