Transform the Lives of Children in Gujarat, India

Participatory Action Research on Bullying:

Bullying is common, it is everywhere, and among children too. Few of our children and facilitators shared about bullying in the area, school and even in Balsena.

How can we create safe space in Balsena? How can children really understand about effects of bullying?

"Participatory Action Research" came as one of the answers.

We organized a camp during 6-9th May with some of the active children of Balsena, and discussed issue of bullying in their lives, and how it affects any child. We asked them if they would like to get deeper into it and also bring about a change in their behaviour and in others. Together we designed 4 tools for collecting data for this Participatory Action research, where children came up with 54 indicators of bullying with separate indicators for physical, mental, emotional, economic and sexual bullying. They also identified 10 most common places where they face the same. They discussed about the impact it has on the child, his/her family, community and society at large.

 128 Balsena children collected data from 17 communities where they live, and tried to understand the situation of bullying in their areas. They collected data from 988 children which includes 458 boys and 530 girls.

Based on the data collected, children analysed the data for their own area, prioritized the issues and made action plans based on the same.During the year, now they will organize programmes accordingly.

Compilation of data of all these 17 communities and its analysis is still under process. 

Vacation Camp: 

Vacation Camp was organized in 17 areas of Balsena, where on an average 111 boys and 80 girls took part every day. Activities like 1 minutes games, sports games like cricket, volleyball, handball, kho-kho and kabaddi were organized. Children learnt hard skills like ironing cloths, mapping area, budgeting, making decorative pieces and wall hangings, stitching buttons and torn in the cloths, Sharbat-(home- made cold drink) making, etc. Through these hard skills children learnt that no work is small. Many of these tasks are for women and girls in real life so the boys learnt to respect the girls and also do these tasks. This provided as excellent opportunity to reduce discrimination between boys and girls and make them more gender sensitized. They also learnt soft skills such as letter writing, basic daily life arithamacy, application writing, etc. Children also organized "Samuh Bhojan" and Swayam Pak" activities where they would either get food and eat together, or they would cook together, and eat together. Children enjoyed this program the most. Boys also participated in cooking. Discrimination reduced not only between genders, but between castes and religions as well, as in their society people from different castes or religions do not even drink water at others' place.  

Through this Vacation camp children not only hard and soft skills but also learnt life skills such as creative thinking, communication with parents, leadership, getting group consensus for any decisions and values like equality and no discrimination.  

Facilitators observed that children started coming punctually for all the activities. Many parents would also come, and observe what was happening, some would even join the activities or help out the facilitators. This was a huge achievement for us. 

Bholaram, is name of a child who is very active in Balsena point. He also came for leadership camp on bullying. He would be the first to reach point of his area, go and call all the children, help out in activities, tell children not to discriminate and bully others.  

This year Balsena is working in 19 community areas and 12 schools. During these months we also did a base line survey of all the children who have joined Balsena.

Life Beyond Development Training: 

We are facing climate crisis. It is important to make children aware about this issue and understand about how it is affecting our environment, people and their health. 

48 Balsena children participated in this workshop. We covered topics like story of mobile phone, water, cosumerism, interdependence, etc. thorugh games, activities, discussions and movie clippings. 

In the feedback sessions most children vowed to make a difference in their life and also tell other people about it. Many also spoke about doing these activities as a collective. It was heart-warming to see a seed was sown in their hearts.

Balsena Elections:

Each year Balsena elections are held democratically and in an open non secretive manner. Children choose their leaders by creating criteria and discussing how each candidate performs in each criteria. In month of June Balsena children elected a new council. Council is the main decision body of Balsena. The election was done in 30 teams and each team elected 4 leaders (Captain, Vice-Captain, Core group member 1, Core group member 2) for Council. Balsena believes in equal representation, hence 50% reservation for both gender has been in practice since its inception.

Two meetings of council and active members were held to discuss about Presidential election where approximately 60 children participated in each meetings. They also discussed about criteria for President and Vice President. They discussed about potential candidate for the same.

On July 19^th and 20^th Presidential election was hosted through a residential camp. During this camp 101 children of council and active members were present. Children played a “Win-Win” game to understand different political systems like Autocracy, Monarchy, Direct and Indirect Democracy. Through an activity and a story children also understood the importance of being active citizens in Democracy and importance of asking questions and holding their leaders accountable. Presidential elections were held in same open manner. Khushal was named as president, and Nihar and Komal were elected as Co-Vice Presidents. Mr. Nanak Bhatt from Shishuvihar graced us with his presence during the announcement and also inspired children to become active citizens. Shishuvihar is a leading organization in Bhavnagar which has done much noted work with children especially their right to play.

One Day Trainings:

This year in one day training we have taken a slightly different approach. We have selected few children from each team who are leaders and may be interested in facilitating further with other children. The selected children come to one day trainings and facilitate the point activities in their point. This will improve their leadership and help in strengthening Balsena.

3 One day trainings were held on 7^th July, 13^th July and 28^th July, with 44, 60 and 65 children respectively. Theme of one day trainings was connecting to nature through trees, making science instruments from waste, and other games and activities to learn team building, leadership and decision making.

Savings Bank:

Saving Bank Annual Day was celebrated on 20^th July. Saving Banks program has been running since 2004 in Balsena. This year Rs. 79,815 were saved by children. Kharo community has saved the most: 11,153INR, while Fulsar community was one with least withdrawal of 300INR in the last year. Kuhshal from Chitra Ramdevnagar was awarded for doing most regular savings and very less withdrawal. Saving Bank program help children in understanding importance if savings, money management and understanding one’s needs.