Launch of 'Our child our progress' - Child tracking system for collection, analysis of information for protection of children

An ambitious project of CRT, Our Child Our Progress (OCOP), child tracking system for collection and analysis of information for protection of children will be launched by Mr. Umesh Aradhya, Chairman, Karnataka State commission for protection of Child Rights [KSCPCR] on 29th March at EDC auditorium, Sheshadhri Road in the city at 10:30 am.

Mr. Sridhar Pabbisetty, Chief programmes officer at B.PAC; Ms. Shashikala Shetty, Project Director, Integrated Child Protection Scheme [ICPS], GoK; Ms. Suchitra Rao, Independent Development Consultant; Mr. Guruprasad, Partnership Manager, Railway Children, UK; Mr. William Gali, Country Director, Every Child, UK; Dr. Padmini, Trustee, Child rights Trust will take part in the programme followed by discussion on 'Status of children and the importance of collection and analysis of statistics in relation to children'.

Background

Well being, a better status and condition of children in any community defines the development indicator of a state or nation. For this purpose information related to children are collected in large numbers. Of late this kind of collection, analysis and reports are prepared with the help of computers and technology. But, still we find disparities in reports, analysis and reports due to non compatabilty in statistics collected by various NGO's and Govt departments that are working for upholding rights of children. The sum total effect of it, continued violation of Child rights.

In order to arrest these obstacles CRT has developed a web based software-Our Children Our Progress for collection and analysis of child centered information locally and generation of reports. Child cenered information gathering begins from womb till children complete their 18 year. With the help of this system, information will be collated and analysed and reports on the situation of children are provided to the service providers advocating them to uphold the rights of the children and to prevent exploitation.

This dream project of CRT has been tested with the financial support of EveryChild and technical inputs by Hooduku IT solutions. This software has been tested in the last two years in 20 Grama Panchayats at Rayabagh taluk, Belagavi District with the back up of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department of GOK. MASS, a local organisation and 25 volunteers took the responsibility of collecting on line data with house to house survey. The software has analysed the information for about 18,000 children from 6000 families (with children). This software generates reports that can be used at Panchayats, Anganawadi, Health centres, Schools, Police, Social welfare department and NGOs. All these can join hands with the Panchayats in understanding the ground realities about the status of the children and analyse the same and take measures to uphold rights of the children . This software also helps to curb the misuse of resources.

This Software helps to generate

1. Age wise children Report
2. Religion and cast based Children report
3. Report on Orphan Children
4. Report on Child Labour
5. Report on Birth registration
6. Report on children with disability from birth
7. Report on Child marriage and Minor pregnancy

Rural Children's Libraries

In the period April 2011 to December 2012, various children's rural library activities were carried out in some villages of Karnataka 's Bellary and Dharwad districts.

Each library over 1,700 books in English and Kannada, covering a wide variety of genres including fiction, non-fiction and reference books. The books are graded and  color as per the reading capacities of the children using GROW BY READING standards. The books are issued to readers/children as per their grade and are facilitated to graduate to higher grades.

All the libraries that have been started are working well and slowly succeeding in seeking the attention of the children. Nearly 30-40 children have become members in each library. Children of these rural libraries are participating very actively and showing improvement in their reading capacity and other non-curricular activities. Parents of these children are appreciating this kind of library.

These libraries are functioning about 2-3 days in a week. Once in three months, these libraries are updating the reports and recording the reading level of each student. As revealed in the attached account statement, Frequently, teammates of CRT visits these libraries to get an understanding of the implementation of the libraries and the feedback that we have received is that the libraries have geared up their functioning and are attracting more children to the libraries.

Child Rights Trust with the coordination and cooperation of its networking NGO friends such as KIDS, BIRDS, Sneha, READS, DON BOSCO, Seeds and CARDS has successfully finished its one year of smooth functioning of Children's libraries in these districts. The concept of children's library “by the children, for the children, with the children” has made a mark in the communities of Dharwad and Bellary districts of Karnataka. We have found such enthusiasm from local donors and children, that some of the expenses have been borne by them and we have had savings in the expenditures budgeted originally as part of this project. Also, one school has been inspired by our open library in the area to allow its children free access to its library, as against the usual rigid closed school library.

Against this background, children had gathered on 15th July 2012 at Ananthashayana Gudi, Hospet in order to share their experience and opinions. Sixty five children were present from ten different libraries (five children from each library).

CRT is getting feedback that other NGOs are interested to initiate and implement Rural children's Library in their working areas. Another donor has funded CRT to initiate some in Chamrajanagar district, where we are working along with Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) and some local NGOs.So we would like to initiate some more libraries in other districts

A sense of what Rural Children''s Libraries are about can be seen by the video showcasing our award winning Chaglatti Library on Youtube [search for Chaglatti].

We are looking forward to more support to extend our project in the days to come.

Child Rights Special Grama Gram Sabha

 Child Friendly Grama Panchayats in Karnataka a unique best practice

It was in Aug 2006, CRT-Child Rights Trust a Bangalore based NGO made a presentation on the situation of children in Karnataka and the probable responsibilities of RDPR-Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, towards child rights that made the department to issue a circular on conducting `Grama Sabhas on Children's issues' in Karnataka.

The circular issued by RDPR, GoK (2006) to conduct regular Grama Sabhas on children’s issues is bearing fruits. Various NGOs and several Grama Panchayats have taken the idea in a progressive manner and are conducting Grama Sabhas effectively. CRT developed this model with the support of CRY and EveryChild during 2003 to 2006 and is continuing to work in some select districts with a separate dedicated team. CRT has also developed communication and reference material for this activity, which has been used by RDPR and in various trainings conducted by Abdul Nazeer Sab State Institute of Rural Development (ANSSIRD) to trainers and GP members on the importance of the idea and the processes to be followed.

This joint effort by RDPR, SIRD and hundreds of NGOs actively involved in child rights and rural development, in the last six years thousands of Grama Panchayats have conducted 'Child Rights Special Grama Sabhas' enthusiastically. In the beginning a few NGOs and some section of the Govt. departments raised several questions about the validity or feasibility of conducting special Grama Sabhas on child rights issues. After a few initial hiccups, the said Grama Sabha with the able support by RDPR, could solve hundreds of issues pertaining to children, which were otherwise ignored by the local administrators and people's representatives.

Best practice

1. Panchayats are now aware of not only CRC provisions but also related issues like MDGs and State Plan of Action goals to be achieved in terms of survival of children, protection issues, measures to be taken for the development of children and honouring the rights of children to participate.
2. Every year RDPR Secretariat issues a circular reminding the GPs to conduct Child Rights Special Grama Sabha around November.
3. SIRD-State Institute of Rural Development has evolved a training manual based on the experiences of NGOs and invites NGOs to train the trainers on Child Rights as well conducting Child Rights Special Grama Sabha.
4. The Education Department mentions the Child Rights Special Grama Sabha in its annual time table sharing information with the students to take part in the event.
5. RDPR issues advertisements in newspapers and radio with special interviews and programmes
6. In 2011 the minsters for RDPR and DWCD jointly addressed a press conference announcing the modalities to be followed by GPs to conduct the special Grama Sabha on child rights.
7. Every CEO of ZP nominates nodal officers through TPs to every Grama Panchayat to oversee the modalities to be followed by the GPs in conducting this special event
8. The GPs are instructed to give wide publicity to the event, organise with due notice, provide opportunity to children and adults to raise issues pertaining to children, instruct all the concerned officers (anganawadi workers, teachers, health workers, police, fair prize depot proprietors and others) to be preset to respond to the demands of the children. GP pradhan to take the responsibility of finalising the decisions taken in the Sabha and the same is minuted for follow up. They are also expected to record the proceedings in video form and share with the ZP along with time line for fulfilling the promises.

Some outcomes

• Children come prepared with issues, when given an opportunity that they can raise their issues. In many GPs children have experiences about three to four Grama Sabhas and know what issues to be raised.
• Adult community are generally amused in the beginning, but now eagerly look forward for the special Grama Sabha (its true that the regular Grama Sabha normally do not discuss many issues which can be considered as trivial, but of great importance to the life of the community in villages)     
• Minor issues like (which adult world think) changing the time of drinking water supply in the villages (which was earlier obstructing children from attending morning session in the school); getting the long absentee teachers red hand and compelling them to attend classes (!); prevention of child marriages; getting anganawadi to children belonging to minority and scheduled castes; preventing dedication of children into devadasi system; getting the Panchayat take note of the filth in the school premises in the week ends (abuse of school premises by youth); getting a playground to the school; getting disability screening done in the village itself; identification of orphans and destitute in the village; toilets for schools; higher education provisions for rural children; child protection issues; public transport to schools; health care, etc.
• A very significant achievement is that in many Grama Panchayats the four basic service providers health (ANM); early childhood care and development (Anganawadi); education (School teachers) and the Panchayats have conducted joint meetings to resolve the issues rose in the Child Rights Special Grama Sabhas.

Future course of action

Currently conducting Child Rights Special Grama Sabha, although the circular and the directions given RDPR and the concerned minsters say that it is compulsory, it still remains optional. There is a need to formalise this special Grama Sabha in the Panchayat Act, making it clear that GPs have an obligatory role towards children and their rights and conducting this Grama Sabha is not ceremonial but a statutory requirement. Messages in this regard were given by the concerned minister in a recent congregation of GP Pradhans and members and NGO representatives at Dharawada.

A lesson on this issue need to be introduced in the social studies text books at class 7, highlighting the importance of children taking part in this special meet.

As other states are showing interest in learning the process and the usage of this special Grama Sabha, GOI need to take note of the development and consider the process as a best practice for other states to follow.