By Shilpa Pandya | Consultant
Since its inception, preventing children from all kinds of exploitation and raise leadership among them to attain their rights has been the core agenda of Shaishav. The organisation witnessed many ups and downs in last two decades though the passion and the pace remained intact. Since last October the struggle has been started to sustain the programmes without any financial support. But needless to say that the team at Shaishav is working with same enthusiasm and commitment. Nevertheless, new initiatives to enhance children’s skills have been taken in form of Lokshala (community schools).
Lokshala is a community based learning centers started in two community areas with an objective to provide supportive education and other trainings to children of five to fifteen years of age from community areas. This education is provided in a very child friendly and innovative manner so that the education becomes fun and children enjoy their education. In addition, during the week ends this center are also focal points for conducting various activities and trainings for Balsena (community based children’s collectives). These trainings include leadership trainings, adolescent girls’ and boys’ trainings and life skill trainings for children.
Thus last quarter was very much busy for the children and their facilitators too. They jointly put their hard efforts to start and run Lokshala in a sustainable manner. In last four months nearly 200 children of five to fifteen years of age are enrolled in two Lokshalas of Madhia Road and Girnar Gopal areas. The unique feature of Lokshala is that parents and other community leaders are also actively engaged in management and monitoring of the centers. The children from first to seventh grade are educated and trained here equally without any discrimination.
Continuing its existing programmes, Shaishav has now focused in ten community areas and fifteen schools. In these areas and schools the children are organised through Balsena. The facilitators have weekly meetings with Balsena children. This meetings are organised with various activities and trainings. Moreover there are number of events when children from all areas have opportunity to meet, interact and learn mutually through sharing of experiences. The children at Balsena also celebrate festivals together. In addition to celebration of Christmas in last quarter, the children also celebrated the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda – an inspiring personality and a very well known Hindu Monk of 19th century on 12th January. We had organised six shows of inspirational films for children in this week. 360 Balsena children enjoyed watching these films. Similarly a 3 days food festival organised in Bhavnagar by children witnessed 259 people from community who not only came but also tasted and appreciated the recipes prepared by Balsena children. As a part of knowledge building exercise, 31 children including 13 boys and 18 girls visited a local library and attained information about the books and other literature available at the library. In last quarter Shaishav also organised Balmela – children’s fair for Balsena children and conducted various activities of skill development of children during this Balmela.
Balsena children have a practice of electing their representatives called council members every year. These council members are regularly provided different trainings including leadership trainings. They also conduct periodical meetings to discuss the issues prevailing in areas. In January one such meeting was organised by council members which was participated by 65 children including 27 boys and 38 girls.
Various trainings are imparted to children for skill development and behavior change. Following this practice, a training on saving programme was conducted in Kumbharwada in January month which was participated by 62 children – 37 boys and 25 girls. The participants were made aware of the importance of savings and motivated to start savings with smaller amounts even.
Apart from this, Shaishav facilitators have organised adolescent groups for girls and boys. These groups have regular meetings to discuss various issues pertaining to their studies, social issues and issues of their areas as well. The facilitators support them to discuss such issues in a way so that all members can participate equally. They also organize various activities on their own. In last quarter 31 boys from Kishor mandal i.e. adolescent boys and 37 girls from Kishori Mandal i.e. adolescent girls acquired different trainings by the facilitators. They played a crucial role in organizing food festival which is mentioned earlier.
Shaishav’s prime objective is to encourage and motivate children to take leadership in addressing the issues affecting their rights and protection. For this the organisation provides support through facilitation to identify the critical issues from their community area and then children try to resolve them on their own. In January Balsena children organised a rally against substance abuse and 100 children actively participated in this rally.
Thus despite the short of the funds both Shaishav and Balsena children are firm to take this movement of Child rights protection further with their hard efforts and dedication.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have been supporting us in our journey of child rights prevention and child protection. And we hope that you all would continue to support us in future also.
Thank you once again from Shaishav and Balsena children
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