Children - The Change Maker

New Leaders Took The Charge of Making Change

In view of Child Development, we strongly believe to encourage children to take lead and participate while addressing the issues pertaining to their lives and their growth. We help them to identify the same through various methods and then work on it. Balsena is an autonomous body led, run and managed by children themselves in a democratic manner. The elected leaders of Balsena are the frontiers of all programmes and policy decisions of the organisation. They also participate in coordination and Trustee Board meetings and give their opinions as well as express their concerns. Our role mainly lies in their capacity building through various trainings and other activities and facilitate to make their voices reach at macro level.

Last quarter was full of exiting events for us and for our children as well.

In May a state level training workshop was organised for the partners of CRCG (Child Rights Collectives Gujarat). The programme was conducted to provide training on analysis of the data collected as part of Child Rights Audit Process by the respective organisations. Total 69 children (38 girls and 31 boys) along with 25 adults were benefited through this training.

Apart from this 850 children of Student Police Cadet of Bhavnagar city were given training about child rights and how to protect those rights by Shaishav team in the same month.

While skill development of disadvantaged children is amongst the major concerns, in May 2016 the organisation inaugurated the second community computer training centre at Sardarnagar. Our prime focus here is to provide computer trainings to Balsena children and their parents as well in order to make them computer literate at minimal cost.

May is a month of joy for children as they have summer vacations in schools. However, we at Shaishav make the period more joyful for children by organising vacation camps where they can have fun with some good learnings too. This year also we organised 3 vacation camps which was benefited by 303 children. The most popular activities in vacation camps this time were swayam pak (children bring material from home and prepare different recipes in the camp) and Best from Waste (Children bring plastic waste and other waste from home and make different items like toys, pen stand etc. out of this waste). In addition the children learned important lessons through visits to various places including Fire station and City Library. These activities helped to bring creativities out of children and they also sensitize them about the importance of even the smallest things which are considered like waste. They also learn about cooking while preparing recipes.

Children get many opportunities of exposure and capacity building when they are engaged with various activities of Shaishav. Bhumika Chauhan, a 16 years girl from Kumbharwada area in Bhavnagar got such opportunity when she participated in a two days National Consultation on Ending Violence Against Children at Guwahati in May 2016. It was for the first time for Bhumika – a daughter of a construction worker got a chance to travel out of the Gujarat state and participate in such National level conference.

Apart from this annual review of Child Helpline programme was done by Vaijanti Mamtora – Programme Coordinator, Childline India Foundation, Mumbai and the same was appreciated. In fact Shaishav is awarded to be one of the best performing partner institutes of Childline India Foundation.

We at Shaishav are also concerned about the capacity building of our teams so that they can deliver their utmost outputs for their work. In June 2016 we had conducted a two days training for all Balsena organisers to train them for organising creative activities for children in areas.

12^th June anti child labour day was observed by the team by performing street plays across the city. A team of 27 organisers and children performed 25 shows in different areas of the city. The objective of these performances was to generate awareness about child rights and child labour issues amongst the citizens. Nearly 2000 people of different areas and communities had watched them. The team also distributed over 4000 pamphlets during the shows.

Moreover a series of meetings with Lok Samarthan Manch (a forum for involving community people for child development activities in the area) were conducted in 4 areas which was benefited by 137 people. The issues such as need for high school in a particular area or Anganwadi (government run day care centre for 0 – 5 years children) were discussed and plans of action were also developed in these meetings.

Equality and unity are the core values of Balsena. To make the children understand the values of democracy and become a responsible citizens when grown up, all Balsena leaders are elected every year through election process in a democratic manner. All the elected leaders further elect the council members who then elect the president and the vice president of the council. Following this tradition, an election was conducted on 10th July 2016, to elect the Balsena leaders, council members and the president and the vice president. This year 170 children representatives of all balsena collectives across the city, voted to elect their President and Vice President. This year Bhumika Chauhan from Kumbharwada, Mafatnagar area was elected as the President where as Jayesh Jadhav from Veermeghnagar was elected as the Vice President of the council. Bhumika a young daughter of a construction worker is active with Balsena activities since her childhood. She is perusing her 10th class exams and wants to continue her studies till graduation. Jayesh a fourteen year old boy is engaged with Balsena activities for about four years and is studying in 8th class. His father is a casual labourer. 

The election was combined with a Leadership camp where all 170 children learned lessons of leadership quality through various interactive games and activities.

In order to make Balsena children understand the importance of savings since their childhood and cultivate savings habit among them, Shaishav started savings programme for Balsena children in 2004. Children enrolled under this programme can make saving of as small as 5 rupees a week. Moreover, every year the members get consolidated financial details during Annual Meeting of Saving Programme. This year Annual Meeting was organised on 10th July at Sindhunagar, Bhavnagar. Total 210 children and 16 parents participated in the programme. Nevertheless, children actively participated in learning activities to understand the values of leadership and participation. The programme was honoured by Mr. Dhirubhai Dhandhukiya – Former Principal of Shri Gandhi College, Bhavnagar. He appreciated children’s efforts for savings since childhood. Nevertheless, he gifted 1000 Rupees to the saving programme and gave blessings to the children for future.

In July we also organised a two days camp with child labour children. The objective of the programme was to generate awareness among these children about the issues of child rights and child labour and motivate them to continue their studies so that they can come to main stream. The programme was benefited by 60 child labour children of 6 to 14 years of age.

Moreover, we had organised Kishore Mela (Adolescent boys fair) and Kishori Mela (Adolescent girls fair) in order to make them aware of the issues pertaining to adolescent age. 94 boys and 47 girls participated in respective programmes.

Similarly we had organised a day long training for CPC (Child Protection Committee – a community based body to work on child protection issues at community level, comprising active community members and children as well). They were given orientation on their roles and responsibilities as CPC members and about different laws related to child rights and child protection.

Last but not the least at the end of the month a team of 27 children and 7 youth performed an exercise of Documentation of impact of Balsena and Tarunsena activities (youth activities).

In sum, this quarter was intensively active and significant with so many exiting events, exposures and election. The Balsena children have elected their leaders for the year ahead in this quarter only.

 Though all of us have worked extensively hard but at the same time, we also appreciate the incredible support and encouragement received by our well wishers and supporters. We genuinely thank all of you for your continuous support and trust in our efforts.

• d (PPT)