Our children take part in many national and international platforms. In month of February, 3 children from Balsena took part in an international conference “Children as Agents for Transforming Society.” The conference was hosted for Asia chapter for the first time. The theme was child protection. Children learnt about child rights, U.N.C.R.C and the situation of child rights in various parts of Asia, online safety and internal development. 

Regular leadership camps are organized to strengthen council members, and leaders. 81 children took part in leadership camp in February. The main theme of the camp was life skills. Children learnt about skills like listening, planning and reflection.

We believe that giving children exposure, helps them in building life skills and also exposes them to various career choices. Balsena children visited Science City in month of February, where they learnt about some of the main principles of science, and their application. 176 girls and 186 boys took part in this exposure visit. In month of March, Balsena children visited District Library. 141 boys and 135 girls learnt about how to categorize the books with author, publishers, topic, etc., and learnt about spectrum of books available in Library. 

Exam time in Gujarat is in April. We did various activities throughout the 3 months to help children in clearing concepts in fun way and giving those tips and helping them solve difficulties in the subject or topics they found difficult. In February, we organized a Balmela on theme of Maths as children often find the subject difficult. 153 children took part in the same. 

Everyone knows about the climate crisis, but we are not doing anything about it. There is no child rights, if there are no earth rights, our very survival is dependent upon it. Taking inspiration from Greta Thunberg, Balsena children decided to do awareness on the issue. For 3 Fridays in month of March, they did demonstration in some of the busy parts of the city in the evening. We were able to reach around 2500 people during these days. Balsena children learnt and explained others about climate crisis, and also encouraged people to take at least one oath, to do something to save the nature. 

Part of Shaishav's work is to share it's learning with other organizations, who want to work in the same space. Shaishav has been providing guidance to Aataapi Sewa Foundation, located in Bharuch district, Gujarat. Team from Aataapi Sewa Foundation came to visit Shaishav and Balsena in month of March. They understood about concept of Balsena, its history, different content and tools that we use for Balsena. They also visited Balsena points, understood about Savings bank program. 

Child participation is at core in all our work, hence it is very important for us to get feedback from children on their reflections and learnings during the year, and how they want us to improve. The children also help in creating the annual plan for the next year, for Balsena. In month of March, we did series of focused group discussions with children for both of this. Children shared that they learnt about child rights, identifying problems in their school and voicing out their opinion, learning about environment and implementing waste segregation system in their school. Children also shared that they would like to engage their parents more in Balsena activity, doing a tree plantation drive in their area, and working on removing addictions like alcohol, tobacco from their area. They identified that there are still few child labours in their area, and would like to work with them, and their parents and make them aware about child rights.   

 General elections in India are going on currently. Mostly children are all but forgotten as they do not cast votes. 4 children from Balsena had participated in a state level workshop in January, on Democracy, and making of an election manifesto with what children need. In April 8 representatives from children from Balsena and Tarunsena went to meet contestant of the major two party in our constituency, and presented them with our demand.  

We aim to provide self-defence training Wenlido to all the girls in Balsena. Last year we trained 927 girls from age 8-19 years in an age appropriate manner. This April we held 3 more trainings with girls. 66 girls were part of these trainings.

As exam time is in April our day to day work with children slowed down. We used this opportunity to create annual plan for Balsena, and also plan for vacation camp, and train ourselves for the same.

 

Thank you

Regards,

Shaishav Child Rights

P.S. : I have attached photos for the report. 

#1: Child doing a science experiment at Science city

#2: Children creating personal plan during residential camp

#3: Children explaining about climate crisis to citizens.