Transform the Lives of Children in Gujarat, India

Since its inception Shaishav has been committed to realising the basic rights of the children, particularly the underprivileged. Having intensive experience of empowering the children for their rigths we started Child  Rights Training and Resource Centre in order to provide hand holding support to the organisations working in the same area but are in seek of support for training and capacity building for their teams. Nevertheless, the organisaiton consistently endevours for skill development and capacity building of Balsena (Community based Children’s collectives), community leaders and other team members as well. For this we organise various programmes, training workshops and exposure visits for them.

In the quarter June – August 2016 also we conducted number of programmes like earlier –

• In June 2016, a day long training workshop was conducted for capacity building of 13 team members of Balsena.
• Indian Academy of Self Employed Womens Association had invited Shaishav to provide training on self defence to its adolescent girl members in June. The training was given to 40 girls by 2 qualified personnel of Shaishav.
• Shaishav observed Anti Child Labour Day by performing street plays across the city. The team performed about 23 road shows in a single day. Moreover, handbills and other IEC material was also distributed to the audience who watched the shows on roads. The shows were performed by 20 team members of Shaishav and the same were watched by around 2200 adults and children in different areas.
• Members of our Child Help Line and Community Mobilising team participated in various capacity building and orientation workshops organised by the state government and other NGOs. One of such programme was organised in Gandhinagar, Gujarat also.
• The Child Help Line team organised a meeting with Traffic Police personnels in order to seek their support for handling the issues of child protection and child labour.
• The team also coordinated with DEO (District Edcation Officer) to get information about the process of the education schemes implemented for poor disadvantaged children.
• The Community Mobilisation team conducted a meeting with the parents of Balsena children in Dhananagar, Mafat nagar and Apnanagar and discussed the issues pertaining in their areas. It included the issues of water and drainage connections, government subsidy schemes for education of children and school admission process for drop out children.
• Shaishav is also invited as a member of a district level Child Help Line Advisory Committee chaired by the District Collector. This gives a good platform to share our experience and raise the issues of child protection and child safety in the committee.
• We organised a two days residential Leadership Camp for Balsena children where in 45 children learned the lessons of leaderships.
• Shaishav always encourage and motivate its team to participate and voice their opinions at various state and national level forums. In its efforts to this, one of the Balsena active members Bhoomi Chavda and Balsena Coordinator Nilam Jadav participated in a four days National Consultation on Child Protection organised in Assam state of India. Interestingly it was the first experience of Bhoomi, a teenage girl of a casual labourer to travel out of the state in train.
• A team of Balsena children and staff also participated in a four days State Consultation of Children. It was a third phase of Child Rights Audit (CRA). CRA is an intensive exercise performed by children of all the participating NGOs across the state to identify the issues pertaining to Child Safety and Education. In the third phase the children prepared recommandations for National Child Policy based on the findings of CRA and submitted the same to a committee member of National Commission on Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). Representatives from State Committee on Protection of Child Rights and UNICEF also had been part of this event.
• In July Balsena children elected their new President and Vice President for this year. Bhoomika -a 17 year old girl and Jayesh –a 15 year boy took the leadership as President and Vice President of Balsena respectively.
• Balsena also conducted annual meeting for its savings programme. This programme is run to cultivate savings habit among children. Every week children save 1- 10 bugs in their respective accounts which they can withdraw in times of need. Over six hundred children save money every week and sometimes also withdraw the same to help their parents, pay school fees or buy books for study.
• We also organised two days residential camp for child labour children in July. The objective was to create awareness among them about the issues of child labour, child rights and child safety and also to motivate them to go to school and complete their education. The programme was participated by 60 children from the city.
• In July we had conducted fairs for Adolescent boys and girls with different interactive and innovative activities which was attended by 94 boys and 47 girls respectively.
• Many schools and colleges across the state invite Shaishav to orient their children about the issues of child protection and child rights. Responding to one such invitation a team of Shaishav visited Vivekanand college of Bhavnagar and provided information about the organisation and contemperory issues on child protection to 90 students of the college.
• Our community development team conducted training on child rights for Child Protection Committee members of two wards which was participated by 78 adults and children.
• In August we conducted two leadership camps for newly elected council members of Balsena which was attended by 87 children.
• In August we celebrate Rakshabandhan festival. This festival is to strengthen love between sitsters and brothers. All girls tie a Rakhi – a decorated string/belt on their brothers’ writst and brothers give gifts to the sisters. The notion of the festival is to make brothers responsible to protect sisters and respect the sister – brother relationship. This year our Balsena children celebrated the festival in a very unique way. They tied string to the trees of Victoria Park garden and took oath to protect the trees and thus environment of the city.
• Balsena Vice President Jayesh Jadav participated in a National level programme of Children Parliament organised by Nine is Mine organisation in Delhi in August.
• Shaishav also particiapted in a day long National workshop organised by Stop Child Labour Platform.

Thus this quarter was full of multiple activities – election, trainings, participation in various programmes and our own internal seminars and fairs.

Thus our journey is going on with all sorts of events and adventures. And we continue to get support and cooperation from the people and well wishers of Shaishav. We thank all of them who are with us in our journey.

Thank you