Transform the Lives of Children in Gujarat, India

Balsena is an independent collective of children that is facilitated by Shaishav.  Balsena is 18 years old children's collective and first one in Gujarat. 

Here is glimples of what happened in past four months. 

NEED ASSESSMENT

Children are always evolving and with them evolves their needs. Shaishav did a need assessment to find out what is the need of children today, especially after experiencing Covid and living in this new normal. During the assessment the team found that children were involved in child labour because schools were closed and with this they were helping their families financially during the covid phase. Also, because of the lockdown and child labour children has forgot everything which they have learnt before and their skills have also declined which team get to know when they did the assessment. 

The entire Shaishav team went to all the zones and met with different groups of children as well as other stakeholders such as parents, teachers, Baldosts, etc. 

BASELINE

Balsena facilitators visited homes, met with the parents, conducted meetings to prepare the list of children who will continue in Shaishav with the team of Balsena, along with their age, their grade, whether they are continuing school, or going into labor, their school’s name, etc. Baseline data helps facilitators to design programs for children. Balsena facilitators also follow up with children who go into labour and try to convince them and their parents to join the school again.

 After all the assessments, survey’s and baseline the Balsena team started their point with some more exciting and new activities from the scratch so that children will remember their previous learnings and with this thier new learnings will be able to learn and catch new things easily. 

At the learning points, children acquire knowledge and skills on life skills, child rights and nationally and internationally recognized days which we call ‘Celebration days’.

CELEBRATION DAYS

Celebrations are important for the development of the knowledge of our culture and this also helps in developing skills and it’s an interesting way where children get to learn by playing and enjoying only . Children and facilitators both enjoy celebration of different days. 

Few days we celebrated with the children were:

1) Independence day celebration:  

This day was celebrated for children to know about the importance of Independence. A day to give honour and respect to the freedom fighters of India who had fought a long battle against Britishers for India's Independence. This celebration has helped children to learn about the real heroes of India and together as a team we will conquer our battle. 

Children organized this celebration program themselves. They watched the movie ‘The Goal. ’  Through this movie they understood the importance of working as a team and ensuring that no one is left behind regardless of their caste, class, religion, etc.

2) Teacher’s day celebration: 

This day was celebrated to recognise and applaud the efforts of teachers in everyone’s life. The main focus was to help children know about who is a teacher?

Teacher is not who teaches us but Teacher is one who facilitates and guides us. On this day children learn about the qualities of a teacher and get the experience of being a teacher.

So on 5th September, children were the facilitators. They prepared all the activities and games by themselves. Through this all the children learnt a lot about facilitation and management. 

The Balsena facilitators observed that children who weren’t the facilitators were very cooperative with other children facilitators and they enjoyed the whole day with full of energy and excitement.

3) Navratri celebration: 

Navratri was celebrated with children which helps them to know the rich culture of India, the power of good over evil (this helps them to know about what is good and bad in their life), children get the experience of togetherness which they feel that together we can achieve everything. Through this celebration children learn to make wise decisions for themselves. 

On this day, children organized a Garba celebration program for all zones of children in Gaushala zone. They love doing Garba and celebrating the feeling of togetherness through dancing and talking with each other.. 

4) Gandhi Melo :

On the day of Gandhi Jayanti on 2nd October, the team organized a Gandhi Mela for Balsena children. In the Gandhi mela, the activities were designed to teach children about Gandhiji’s life, values, journey and thoughts. Children watched film clips of the movie ‘Gandhi’ and they were also shown an exhibition on the life of Gandhiji. 253 children participated in this Gandhi Mela and they  learnt  the power of truth, nonviolence, and patriotism. 

BALMELA

Balsena team organized a Balmela in Shyampara for children. In this mela there were lots of activities and games for them. Some activities were: papercraft, science toys, Diwali cards and cooperative games. There were more than 100 children who participated in all activities and games. It was a wonderful experience for all of us. We observed that there were many different skills in every child. We just need to give them space and freedom. 

 One-day training

One day training was organized with children. The children learnt about their four basic rights and what each right entails. They also learnt about Child line. 

This training was arranged in 4 areas. There were 39 boys and 29 girls who participated in the training. 

 Active council meeting

The purpose of the active council meeting is for Balsena leaders and from different points to review and plan activities for the month and problem solve different challenges that they are facing in their activities and they face as children. In this platform children raise issues around child rights, review rules to enforce discipline, and if required look for alternative spaces in the communities to host Balsena activities. This meeting also reminds the representatives to uphold their responsibilities and ensure the smooth functioning of life skill sessions.                                                        

There are 4 captains for every point. In this leadership, there is a captain, vice-captain, etc. After covid, Balsena facilitators have arranged this meeting in every zone.  In this meeting, 84 children participated. 

The point of discussion was ‘issues and challenges after covid 19.’ After this meeting there was discussion on solutions also, children and facilitators noted all the points and tried to solve the problem. Sometimes we all focus only on problems, not on solutions. This time children changed their point of view to the problems, it was a great learning for the facilitators too to see children’s positive outlook. 

 KISHOR KISHORI TOT  

Adolescence is a very crucial age for the development of children.  In Balsena, Adolescent girls’ and boys’ groups are formed in each team where they learn different topics that are important to learn at this age. The leaders of these groups come for a TOT and then they facilitate these topics in their groups with help of the Balsena facilitators. 

The theme of this TOT was self awareness and self love- thinking positive points for self. 

84 children participated in this TOT.  

EXPOSURE VISIT 

After the lockdown, Balsena team arranged an exposure visit to Vigyan Nagari(Science city) in Bhavnagar. 81 children participated in this visit. They all visited biology, physics, and chemistry laboratories on this science tour. Science is one of the best ways to change the point of view of society. It's important to children that they all can understand the logic of everything surrounding the environment and beware of doing wrong things under the influence of others. Children were very excited to learn new things practically in the science city. 

Dry Ration Kit and Hygiene Kit

Past two  years have been difficult for everyone around the world, but marginalised communities suffered the most. We distributed dry ration kits to the most needy families in our communities with help of the Goonj Organization during the second wave.  

We also distributed hygiene kits with help of Crypto Relief to children in our communities containing masks, sanitizer, soap and immunity booster of multivitamins and vitamin C. 

Balsena:

Balsena is a children’s collective and a manifesto for children to acknowledge and practice their rights which are right to education, right to an abuse-free living and right to stop labouring.

In the four months when the whole country was suffering from 2^nd wave of corona, Shaishav’s team and Balsena had been engaged to assist people and organize sessions and webinars for children and trainers to aid during the pandemic.

Precautions during 2^nd wave of Corona:

• On 1^st April, 2021, complete group of Shaishav has taken the primary doze of vaccination.
• Online work has been started such as training to facilitators, interaction with Balsena members over WhatsApp.

Because of the 2^nd wave of corona, it wasn’t feasible to do field visits and interaction with the children so Shaishav’s and Balsena team did the planning for activities to be done from home. The team of Shaishav had commenced to listing down the activities of 10 life skills of WHO (World Health Organization), did planning’s about training, Balmela and Sports. Shaishav’s team additionally contacted the children through calls to send them activities and to recognize the actual situations in their households along with that to recognize whether or not the child is being involved in abuse, child labour etc., to make certain that the children’s life should no longer get affected because of covid-19.

WhatsApp broadcast group has been created for children and all of the GCERT syllabus, activities and stories are being sent to the children for the duration of the lockdown. Shaishav and Balsena team made modules on life skills.

After the covid cases went down then all the teams of Shaishav had been requested to return back to the workplace for work with masks, social distancing and proper sanitation.

Capacity Building Sessions to Facilitators:

The sessions were being done for the trainers on how to teach children Life skills in a distinctive way. It is of three days session on science toys, paper crafts, puzzles, creative pictures etc. for the holistic development of children.

Identified children who were left an orphan due to covid-19:

Team of Shaishav took the information of death notes from local newspaper. They liaison with DCPU (District Child Protection Unit) to make them understand that what number of children underneath 18 years have emerge as orphan. Childline & Balsena team did the home visits and accumulated relevant information (children below 18 years of age, deceased person had govt. or private job, death reason, death certificate, how the households are strolling their livelihood, what number of participants are there withinside the family, is a child handicapped etc.). Team made total 409 calls, 144 families were identified where 281 children were left orphan, out of 281 children, 195 youngsters have lost their father, 72 kids have lost their mother and 14 children have lost both father and mother. Their parents died due to uncertain circumstances such as accident or heart attack but major deaths were happened due to corona.  Childline and Balsena team helped orphan children to get benefits from the government schemes and ensuring that they have been completely supported to their rights.

Baseline:

Balsena facilitators visited homes, met with the parents, conducted meetings to prepare the list of children who will continue in Shaishav with the team of Balsena, along with their age, their grade, whether they are continuing school or going into labour, their school’s name, etc. Baseline data helps facilitators design program for children. Balsena facilitators also follow up with children who go into labour and try to convince them and their parents to join the school again.

Activities with Balsena:

Balsena facilitators conducted the on-field activities with Balsena children after cases went down in our state. They only gathered children in group of 5-6 at their door step while ensuring protocols such as masks and distancing.  Activities focused on life skills play, cooperative games, creativity, science experiments, sports to the Balsena children on life skills, Play for Peace, Paper Craft, creative images etc.

We also distributed second part of activity kit with children. The activity book had more than 100 activities on themes such as creativity, connecting to nature, Let’s play Gandhi-Gandhi, critical thinking, plastic and not using single use plastic, games especially local and old games, making working models of different systems in human body etc. We distributed 130 activity books amongst Balsena children.

International Child Labour Day:

Shaishav is part of the national network -Campaign against Child labour (CACL). CACL organized a special event this year. They organized nation wide consultation with child labours, to find out what their challenges are especially how their lives have been impacted due to the pandemic. On the day of Internation child labour day, they organized a webinar where these children shared their stories, their challenges and their wishes from the government. 

One of Balsena child who goes to school as well as child labour, joined this webinar. He shared about his experience as child labour, difficulties that he faces and what his wishes are from the government. 

Child Rights in Action:

Child Rights in Action (CRIA) is an international organization which is based in Paris. CRIA organized an international Web-conference with children. 5 Balsena children participated in this conference. Theme of the conference was gender and bringing gender equality.

Partnership with Goonj for ration kit distribution:

The second wave of Corona hit hard. Many children lost one or both their parents. People’s economic condition also deteriorated. Together with Goonj, a pan India organization, Shaishav distributed ration kits to 400 families. Families include children who lost one or both their parents in COVID, and people who lost their livelihoods, widowed women and other needy families in the communities where Shaishav works.  

BalGhar:

Sampara is an area where families who used to stay on the street are rehabilitated. It was found in our work of child line that children who are involved in begging in various parts of the city come from Sampara. Many children do not go to school and many are enrolled but are not regular in school. We, at Shaishav understand that merely rescuing children from begging and labour won’t work because they will start doing it again. But we have to provide them a space where they can come and learn, enjoy the learning, play , learn about life skills. To explore possibilities of opening such Balghar in Sampara, Balsena team did a baseline survey in the area where they covered 1085 homes. They also did group discussions and meeting with parents. Analysis of this survey is under process.