Child Rights

"Helping a child live like a child"
The Child Labour Issue and Our Approaches
Life at Shakti School
Childline 1098

"Helping a child live like a child"

This is the motto behind all of Shakti’s work with children. In Rayagada District, children face many perils:

• Child Health - Malnutrition is rife due to poor feeding practice and poor economic condition of families.
• Child Labour - Due to their very poor economic background parents are engaging their children in work instead of sending them to school.
• Child Migration - Due to lack of waged employment opportunities people migrate in search of work and take their children with them.
• Child Marriage - Because of age old traditional practices, child marriage is common with girls marrying at 13 to 14 years of age.
• Child Orphans - The Cholera epidemic of 2009-10 orphaned 21 children.

This has driven Shakti to undertake work on behalf of these children by managing a School for rehabilitated child labourers and by becoming the District collaborative organisation for CHILDLINE (Hyperlink).

India ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1992. The Charter of Child Rights (CRC) is built on the principle that "ALL children are born with fundamental freedoms and ALL human beings have inherent rights". It sets international standards for the rights of children conferring 4 basic rights:

1. the right to survival - to life, health, nutrition, name and nationality (enter cross reference to Shakti’s HEALTH work especially mother and child health, nutrition, vaccination, etc.
2. the right to development - to education, care, leisure, recreation (cross reference to Shakti’s Child Labour School)
3. the right to protection - from exploitation, abuse, neglect (cross reference to Shakti’s CHILDLINE work)
4. the right to participation - to expression, information, thought and religion

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The Child Labour Issue and Our Approaches

Child labour is one of the burning issues of our locality. In 1999, Shakti conducted a detail survey of this in both the Rayagada slum and the Ramanaguda block with the support of the District Society for Welfare of Child Labour. We found that the root cause of the child labour system is the socio-economic conditions of the parents. We also observed that the employers are having a strong bias towards the employment of children because their wages, as compared to the adults, are much lower, they work longer hours, they are not rebellious so do not raise issues about their working conditions and are easily kept in check by the employer Ultimately, local employers get the advantage of cheap labour that translates into larger profit margins for them.

Shakti, with its mission to help a child live like a child, has so far been able to rehabilitate around 250 of these children, by providing education facilities, vocational training and linking with the formal education system. Shakti’s staff are actively involved in the area and provide counseling, medical facilities and advocates for these children. Shakti has been running special child labour schools at Ramanaguda and Rayagada since 2000.

Activities have included:

• Survey and identification of working children in the targeted area
• Developing a comprehensive data bank on child labour
• Rescuing working children
• Counseling the parents and the children
• Managing Child Labour Special School
• Developing a suitable curriculum for the children
• Mainstreaming the child at the level of his learning
• Program monitoring and evaluation
• Interacting with government on policies that have a bearing on child labor
• Sensitizing people and communities on the issue of child labor and child rights

Shakti brought these child labourers under one roof, giving them food (Mid Day Meals) and basic education, to develop abilities, skills and capabilities to live a meaningful and self-reliant life. More importantly, Shakti strives to provide the all-important love, care and emotional security to these children to help them fight inequality and insecurity with strong minds and positive attitudes. These children have lost precious years of schooling and play. The world of the classroom and the discipline of study is a real challenge for student, family and teacher alike - a challenge Shakti has taken up whole-heartedly – to rescue, rehabilitate and relocate helpless child labourers. Shakti staff also work with their parents, to enable them to support their children’s schooling.

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Life at Shakti School

The main premise, on which our transit education system is built, is on a motivated teacher and satisfied student. The teachers are fully equipped mentally and physically to undertake the challenge of reforming and reshaping these tender lives. Stories, dialogue and conversation, comparative analogies from life, visuals and pictures, colors, shapes, music, blackboard and more, are all deployed to convey a speedy awareness and understanding of their environment and society. At Shakti’s school joyful learning replaces study by rote, and aims at the wholesome, holistic development of the child.

Classroom teaching is complemented with physical training with indoor & outdoor games to ensure the physical and mental well-being of the students. Shakti has arranged regular health checkups by Doctors to provide better health care. Clean and hygienic conditions, good wholesome food, regular and convenient timing for studies, recreation and prayer, peaceful and disciplined environment, moral and spiritual upbringing, are some of the highlights of life at Shakti School.

Shakti’s goal is to get these children through 5 years of elementary schooling in the space of 3 years, then to transition the children back into mainstream schooling in local schools. At Shakti we are very proud of our 100% successful transition rate. This includes children like Rinky and Manoj (we have changed the names of these children for their protection but their stories are real and typical of the children Shakti rescues.)

Rinky is 14 years old. She was working in a house maid servant when Shakti staff rescued her from her work place. The team counselled her and her parents and after several rounds of motivation, her parents agreed to send her to School . She had previously dropped out at Class 2. Her parents, migrants from Kasipur block, were living in Jhodia Basti (one of the Rayagada Slum areas), and working as construction labourers.

Rinky completed her education in Shakti’s School from 2004 to 2007 after which she was admitted into  Class 6 in RSEWC High School. Then following year she was placed highly (11) in her Class 7 exam and now in 2010- 2011 she is studying in Class 8.

Manoj is 13. He was working in a tea stall when the Shakti team found him in 2004. Again Shakti’s team counselled him and his parents, motivating them to send him to Shakti’s School. He had dropped out of formal schooling at Class 3. His parents are members of the SC communities, work as day labourers and are resident in Sastri Nagar Basti Slum.

He too completed his education in Shakti’s School, Rayagada from 2004 to 2007 and thereafter was admitted in Class 6 in RSEWC High School and is now studying in Class 8. He is very happy with his performance at school and has helped to motivate another 3 child labourers of his slum to also return to education.

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CHILDLINE 1098

CHILDLINE 1098 is a 24 hour, toll free, emergency phone service to reach out to every child in need of care and protection by responding to emergencies and by physically reaching out to children. Any child in distress or a concerned adult can contact CHILDLINE. The trained CHILDLINE staff attends to the call immediately. Whether it is chatting, counseling, arranging emergency medical help, rescuing from abusive situations, repatriation to family, or providing shelter the needs of the child are paramount. On an average we are restoring 1,000 children to their parents in a year.

This is a national program currently operational in 171 Districts in India. In Rayagada District Shakti is mentoring the CHILDLINE programme as the Collaborative partner CHILDLINE India Foundation. This programme is supported by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India. The scheme works in collaboration with other allied systems such as the Police, the Telephone Departments, hospitals, shelter homes etc. A city advisory board comprising the district collector, city police commissioner, the municipal commissioner, the labor commissioner, the district social welfare commissioner, chairpersons of juvenile justice board and the child welfare committee, General Manger, BSNL, representatives of media, heads of city hospitals and eminent social workers and child rights activists supports CHILDLINE.

CHILDLINE Child Protection Activities

• Responding to calls on the national toll free number 1098 and provision to rescue and offer emergency outreach services for children in need of care and protection
• Coordinating rescue and other outreach services with the help of relevant local departments like police, administration, labour, health, railways and others
• Ensuring proper documentation of all children rescued to facilitate their rehabilitation and restoration, where necessary
• Producing children before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) for ensuring care and protection and Supporting the CWC in the long term rehabilitation of children, where required
• Supporting a national network for the tracking of missing children
• Capacity building and training of allied systems and civil society organisations on child protection issues
• Initiation of prosecution and follow-up of the same in cases of child abuse, child trafficking, child labour, and commercial sexual exploitation of children

For details on CHILDLINE services at Rayagada, read more in Odiya,Telugu, Hindi and English.

For more information on National CHILDLINE programme you can visit CHILDLINE India Foundation.

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