Donate by Simply Tweeting

Micromax has launched a twitter campaign for Christmas, wherein for each tweet on #CANGiftHappiness it would donate Re. 1/- to CRY. Within few hours of its launch, the campaign became one of the top topics on twitter in India. Requesting all readers to tweet on this # and help CRY in its social endeavour (get friends and family also to tweet!). All that you have to do is to log into your twitter account and post tweets with this tag. The message could be just about anything – something that makes you happy, something which you want to do to make others happy, something to do with child rights – anything and everything works! You can do a search on twitter with #CANGiftHappiness to see the kind of stuff people are posting – just in case you need any idea starters.

The more tweets we get in the next 6 days on this – the more funding we get! So please do start tweeting.

The added incentive - you can win a Micromax phone as well, autographed by Hugh Jackman.

Rock for Child Rights

This event, is about bringing music lovers in Delhi together for a two day event when they can enjoy the music that they love and at the same time can do something to ensure lasting change for underprivileged children in India. This event will bring together rock groups from across the country and part proceeds from the sale of tickets will be given to CRY.

This event will also see band members from multiple bands come together to create an “anthem for children”. Children from Music Basti will be sharing the stage along with these musicians to perform this anthem as a grand finale to this two day show.

Date: 7th & 8th December, 2013

Venue: Zorba (next to the Sultanpur Metro Station)

Time: 12 noon – 8 pm on both days.

Vote for Child Rights

Dear Volunteer, The power of a vote - your vote can change the lives of millions for the better. Soon, our country will go to the polls. Shockingly, a whopping one-third of India’s citizens will not have a say in determining who forms our next government. Their basic rights are violated every single day. They have no economic power, no vote and therefore no voice. They are India’s children, and they need us - we who have both a voice and a vote - to speak up for them. Today, 66 years after independence, the situation of the Indian child is a grim one: ·         Every second child in India is malnourished ·         11.8% of children in India are engaged in some form of child labour ·         National Dropout Rate at the Elementary Level is over 40% ·         Nearly 45% of girls get married before the age of eighteen years. This election, CRY - Child Rights and You, as an independent non-government organisation working in the area of child rights for over 33 years, has developed a Child Rights Manifesto. We are urging political parties to focus on the issues affecting the rights of Indian children while fashioning their agendas. Being a people’s movement, we need your support! We urge you to join us in this campaign. Visitwww.cry.org/voteforchildrights and sign your support online. Download the Advocacy Kit and become a 'vote for child rights' campaigner. Put up the poster wherever you can. Tell your friends about this campaign. Your support to CRY will be instrumental in ensuring that children become this nation’s top most priority - a place they rightfully deserve. Let us use this opportunity to work together to make India a better place for our children. In faith and goodwill,

Puja Marwaha, Chief Executive, CRY

Diya Painting Event - Spreading smiles this Diwali

On 27th October 2013, CRY volunteers organised a Diya Painting Event at a government school in Sector-63, Noida. The event involved students of class 4 and class 5 and was focused on honing the creativity in children while having fun in painting Diyas.

Divyanshu, a CRY volunteer who participated in the event, quoted “I had never thought before that Diya Painting can be so engaging, fun filled and fulfilling teamwork”. Children as well as volunteers enjoyed the event a lot and embarked the festive celebration of Diwali.

For more pictures of this event click here.

Let's fill fun in a day of children

19th October 2013, CRY Noida volunteers organized a whole day event in a government school in Sector-12, Noida. The event was sponsored completely by Oracle Volunteers, the CSR wing of Oracle Corporation. Approximately 600 students distributed across class 1 to class 8 were catered to by 28 volunteers. Some of the major activities during the event were:

1. Class 7 and class 8 students were gifted Anglo-Hindi dictionary and taught how to find meanings and use phonetics.
2. Class 5 and class 6 students were gifted Hindi to English translation book and taught some basic lessons of the translation.
3. Class 3 and class 4 students were gifted Activity Book containing lots of puzzles and were taught how to apply logic and reasoning to solve those puzzles.
4. Class 1 and class 2 students were gifted Drawing Book and crayons to make them learn about colors and objects, while having fun of coloring.
5. Class 7 and class 8 students were taught some tricks of Vedic Mathematics to expedite multiplication of numbers. They were also provided tutorials to practice the tricks further.
6. Class 7 and class 8 students were taught Origami and were provided bundles of Origami sheets to practice further at home.
7. Class 6 to class 8 students did theme based painting on Diwali.
8. Students of all classes were given Activity Sheets specific to respective classes. The activity sheets had best in class logical/analytical puzzles corresponding to mental level of respective classes. Students enjoyed working on the problems together, discussing them and establishing consensus on solutions.
9. While having refreshments, children enjoyed comedy and educational movies on big screen.
10. Children also showcased their talent of singing, dancing, etc by performing in front of class.

This was the 3rd year in row when this event titled "Let's fill fun in a day of children" was organized. The children and teachers of the school look forward to the event throughout the year as if it were an annual fest for the school; this motivated volunteers to organize the event around October in all 3 years - 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Volunteers also enjoyed the event a lot. Sachin Sharma (Senior Director - Oracle BPM), who volunteered for the event from Oracle side, quoted "Was good fun, activities this time did generate lot of interest and enthusiasm, keep up the good work!". Nupur Vimal, a CRY volunteer, quoted "A huge heartfelt thank you to Divyanshu and Sushant for organizing these activities and making it memorable for all of us."

For more images click here.

Public Speaking Workshop at Ali Gaon, Delhi

CRY Volunteers trained 150 children of a MCD school in Ali Gaon, Delhi, on Public Speaking for over 2 months. Eventually, 40 students were shortlisted to express their point of views on Child Rights during Video Shoot Round of the Speaker of the Year Competition (organized annually by Maverick Ventures) at the school.

More images of the workshop can be seen here.

Authors: Riyana Lama and Divyanshu Singh

Public Speaking Workshop at Noida

CRY Volunteers trained 300 children of a government school in Noida on Public Speaking for over 2 months, starting 17th Aug 2013 till 28th Sept 2013. Eventually, 54 students were shortlisted to express their point of views on Child Rights during Video Shoot Round of the Speaker of the Year Competition (organized annually by Maverick Ventures) at the school.

More images of the workshop can be seen here.

Authors: Riyana Lama and Divyanshu Singh

CHRONICLE: CLICK RIGHTS 2013

Click Rights is an annual campaign of CRY, wherein volunteers spread awareness about a theme by medium of photography. In 2013, it started in July to make people aware of  reasons why many children are still out of school, so that the issues can be alleviated with combined effort of all, enabling children to have brighter future through education. The highlights of this campaign were photography workshops and photo talks by well known Indian photojournalists Raghu Rai and Vicky Roy, and photo-exhibitions at 1AQ Art Gallery and India International Center.

To know more about the Click Rights-2013 events that took place in Delhi, click here

For further information on Click Rights 2013- Delhi Exhibition, click here

Authors: Ritika Sharma and Divyanshu Singh

Invitation to Click Rights Photography Exhibition 2013

Click Rights at Dilli Haat

CRY Delhi Volunteers promoted Click Rights 2013 at Dilli Haat on 18th Aug 2013. The enthusiasm of Dilli Haat patrons in supporting the campaign and that of CRY Delhi Volunteers in explaining them the campaign was beyond imagination.

Click Rights at IIT Delhi

The Click Rights corner set up by the CRY volunteers at IIT Delhi received encouraging response.

Volunteers explained to the students about the campaign. Close to 500 students turned up. Most of them sported Click Rights tattoos on their arms, wore the Click Rights badges and ensured to promote the campaign. 

You too can be a part of the Click Rights campaigns too; for details visit www.cry.org/focusonthechild

Photo talk with Raghu Rai

Padmashree award winner Raghu Rai, one of the most recognized name in the world of photography, held an interactive photo talk – ‘Reels of Change’ for the CRY Click Rights Campaign on August 8th, 2013. Focused on the power of photography to spur people into action, the talk was well-attended and received good participation!

Coverage by "The Statesman"

Coverage by "Millennium Post"

Reels of Change: An interactive photo talk by Raghu Rai

Click Rights 2013 Promotional Event at IHE

The CRY Club at IHE, Department of Communication and Extension, held a long day kiosk at the college on 1st Aug 2013 to promote Click Rights by asking people to upload more and more relevant photographs in order to make the campaign successful. Thus the CRY club reached out to over 1000 students who are first time voters.

Refer this link for more photos of the event.

CRY-HT Enrolment Campaign 2013

In June and July 2013, Hindustan Times collaborated with CRY, under HT's "You Read, They Learn" initiative, to enrol out of school children in NCR to school.

The campaign started with HT publishing ads to invite its readers to volunteer for the campaign. Approximately 400 readers turned up for the cause after seeing the ads.

Then CRY Delhi Volunteers filed RTIs and conducted field surveys to figure out the regions in NCR having significant number of out of school children.

Then the event kicked off with 2 orientation sessions on 23rd June 2013 and 29th June 2013. Famous cricketer, Gautam Gambhir, came up to motivate HT and CRY volunteers during the former session.









Then HT volunteers, under guidance of CRY volunteers, visited previously identified communities in 9 zones of NCR and collected details of out of school children.

Finally, HT volunteers, under guidance of CRY volunteers, visited the communities again to enrol children to nearest schools.

Through the campaign CRY volunteers and HT volunteers were able to enrol 600 out of school children across NCR into schools, within time-frame of the campaign.

Post-campaign, CRY volunteers followed up and enrolled another 200 children till date. Also, they tracked attendance in schools to ensure that the newly enrolled children don't drop out.

Street Play on Child Labour, 24th June 2013 at Begumpur Community

After the workshop discussed about in last blog-post, the participants of the workshop performed an impressive and effective street play at Begumpur community on the issue of child labour.

 

"The response from the audience made us feel we did justice to our play.  People, especially youth, children and women were present in large number and they also passed on the message of importance of education and the dark side of child labour which was the theme and the intention of the play. We believe that this effort would help us realise the dream of - THE ONLY WORK A CHILD SHOULD DO IS HOMEWORK"

- Gaurav Agarwalla (Event Coordinator)

Refer this link for more photos of the event.

LIGHTS.....CAMERA....COLLECTIVE ACTION !!!!

From 8th to 13th June 2013, CRY redefined creativity and its power. A theatre workshop was organized for CRY Delhi Volunteers under guidance of Mehak Theatre Group at CRY office, Saket, Delhi. Many volunteers registered for the workshop and had an experience of a lifetime. CRY through this workshop embarked a movement led by the youth, to take a collective action and to raise their voice against the sensitive issue of child labour.

"It was an extremely enriching and fun filled theatre session. We were made to perform spontaneous short skits. Once the workshop ended, people went out with immense confidence, which they seemed to lack before. We were made to work in groups to sensitize people towards issues of great concern."

- Gaurav Agarwalla (Event Coordinator)

   

"The Theater workshop by Mehak Theater Group taught us the basics of theater, which included coordination, voice modulation and presentation. It was fun and knowledgeable at the same time. A big thanks to CRY for this experience."

                                                                          - Ishita Ahlawat (CRY volunteer)

TO VOLUNTEER FOR CRY CAMPAIGNS AND FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT CRY VISIT http://www.cry.org/index.html

Anti Child Labour Day 2013

World Anti Child Labour Day (ACLD) is observed every year on 12th June. The initiative began in 2002, started by the ILO (International Labour Organization), the UN body which regulates the world of work. The main aim is to stop child labour of kids under the age of 14. 

On ocassion of ACLD 2013, CRY Delhi Volunteers organized two events to show their concern for the cause of Child Labor. 

In the first event, CRY Delhi Volunteers facilitated Mehak Theatre Group to do a theatre performance on theme of Child Labour at Begumpaur Community, on 12th June 2013. The theatre performance was aimed at creating awareness among community dwellers on the issues of Child Labour and Right to Education.



In the second event, CRY Delhi Volunteers organized a flash mob on 16th June 2013 in Select Citywalk Mall, Delhi. The event was a big hit as it helped volunteers to convey their message on issues related to child labour to numerous patrons of the mall.

Refer this link for more photos of the theatre performance.
Refer this link for video of the flash mob.
Refer this link for more photos of the flash mob.

Authors: Sara Hussain, Divyanshu Singh

Pre-event Appreciation for Summer Camp 2013 in Dakshinpuri Community

Dainik Jagran published an article on the summer camp being organized by CRY Delhi Volunteers from June 8 - June 12, 2013 in Dakshinpuri community. The camp was for underprivileged children deprived of opportunities to learn dance, drama, singing, etc.

Authors: Ritika Sharma, Divyanshu Singh

Report on Study of RTE Law Implementation After 3 Years of Enactment

After 3 years of enactment of RTE law, CRY conducted a study across India to find out status of its implementation. Here is report for the study.

Authors: Ritika Sharma, Divyanshu Singh

Complete Report on Knowledge Attitude and Practices Study 2012

On occasion of Anti Child Labour Day 2012, CRY Delhi Volunteers conducted a pan-Delhi study on knowledge, attitude and practices of prospective employers of children towards child labour. 1350 respondents were surveyed evenly across 9 districts of Delhi. Results obtained through analysis of the surveys were striking and helped CRY volunteers organize many awareness campaigns, focussed on specific issues, in the zones that got highlighted as less aware on those issues. Thus volunteers' awareness campaigns got more focussed in terms of both targeted regions and targeted issues. 

Complete report of the study is available for reference here.

Authors: Riyana Lama, Divyanshu Singh

Flash Mobs at Select Citywalk Mall, Saket - 28th April 2013

In the wake of recent unfortunate incident of rape of 5 yrs old girl child in Delhi, CRY is striving to track and fix the issues related to protection of girl child, particularly the issue of missing children.

To express their concern on the issues of missing children and protection of girl child, CRY Delhi Volunteers conducted an awareness campaign at Select Citywalk Mall, Saket, on 28th April 2013. The campaign comprised of two performances of flash mob, one at 4:30 pm and another at 5:15 pm. The novel medium of flash mob helped volunteers reach out to almost all patrons of mall who witnessed the event. Audience's support for the cause and appreciation for the campaign could be easily sensed from following:

• In both the performances audience joined the volunteers performing flash mob.
• Mall's patrons gathered densely around the atrium (the MAC Atrium), across the three floors of the mall, to watch the event.
• Both the performances ended with huge round of applause by audience.

Seeing the interest and support of the public, volunteers realized that their objective of making people aware of the issues and individual's responsibilities towards resolving them got fulfilled.

Video of the event is available here.

Photographs of the same are available here.

CRY's View on Recent Unfortunate Incident of Rape of 5 yrs Old Girl Child

Page 4, The Hindu (New Delhi) - 22nd April 2013
Same article available online here.

Flash Mobs at Ambience Mall, Vasant Kunj - 14th April 2013

14th April 2013 - CRY Delhi volunteers performed flash mobs on themes "Child Labor" and "Issues Faced By Girl Child", at Ambience Mall, Vasant Kunj. Purpose of the flash mobs was to make public aware of prevailing child labor and issues faced by girl child. Moreover, they were intended to make public aware of individual's responsibilities towards resolving those issues. Overall there were two performances, one at 4 pm and another at 5 pm. The two spectacular performances caught attention of almost all mall's patrons who witnessed them and thereby helped convey volunteers' messages easily.

Here is what Shray Bhatnagar, a CRY Delhi volunteer who shot the video, has to say - “The Flash mob was well planned, got executed really well. Our message was loud and clear and we did reach out to the masses. I can’t resist from telling you guys that after our performance there were chants of 'Good Work' and 'Nice theme' from the crowd while I was shooting you from different angles”

Video of the event is available here.
Photographs of the same are available here.

CRY Action Center

CRY Action Centers (CAC) or the RTE booths as more popularly known, are spaces created by CRY volunteers in the community to share information and take action on child rights. They also act as a referral center for cases of CR violations that are reported. Through the CAC, the CRY Volunteers have regularly engaged with key officials - the Block Education Officers, the Child Development Project Officers, Councilors, Government School principals and staff, and Aanganwadi teachers. This has also strengthened community participation and increased the volunteers' ownership, coordination, appointment seeking, detailed planning and discussions. In Delhi, the CAC are functional and regular in three Geo PAGs- Bharat Vihar (Dwarka), Dakshinpuri (Saket) and Seemapuri (East Delhi), thus representing work in 3 districts of the city.

                     

Detailed report of CAC is available here.

A Meet on RTE on 31st March 2013

...on occasion of 3rd anniversary of RTE implementation 

An RTE meet was organized by the All India Parents Association (AIPA) and Social Jurist on 31st March 2013, the eve of the RTE anniversary, at the Gandhi Peace Foundation. The main panel consisted of eminent advocates and philanthropists of education industry - O.P. Sharma, I.S. Gambhir and Ashok Argawal. Many remarkable points on government schools and private schools (both low income and high income) were discussed through speeches and interactive sessions.


Through the interactive session, many parents, activists and students of government schools voiced their experiences and concerns. The most common of those concerns included commercialization of education, poor quality of education, exploitation of school fees, abuse of children in school, corporal punishment and discrimination of minority group children.

CRY Delhi volunteers raised the security issue of schools and the issue of discrimination faced by children at school. As a possible solution, a panel member suggested that parents be strict with the school fees and pay only what is required. Citing that parents remain calm about the treatment of their children in school with respect to discrimination, he suggested parents to act as a team as doing so will force the authorities to stop discrimination.


At the end, Advocate Ashok Agarwal summarized five demands which would be put forward to the Education Minister and State Authority in the form of a petition which was signed by all parents present at the meet.

1. School education should be completely free whether government or private.
2. How many ever government schools are present today, that many more government schools need to come up. Moreover, the schools need to maintain a good standard.
3. The upper age limit for free and compulsory education needs to be increased from 14 years to 18 years. The lower age limit should also be decreased from 6 years to 0-2 years.
4. Constitution must be amended to bring back minority schools and minority groups need to be given more importance.
5. National law should include 50% representation from the community and parents in the school management to implement important decisions such as school fee.

The meet lasted for 3 hours with an attendance of over 120 parents, social activists, media and students.

Authors: Shruthi Dhanwanthary, Divyanshu Singh

References To CRY's Reaction To Union Budget 2013-2014

• For complete article please refer to CRY's blog here.
• For article published in Kolkata Today refer here.
• For summary refer Summary Version-1, Summary Version-2

Purpose of Education - Capacity Building Session

On 27th Jan 2013 CRY Delhi Volunteers Group invited Ms. Simi Sara Thomas, Teacher at St. Thomas School, Delhi, for an interactive discussion with volunteers on her views on ways to impart education and purpose of education, published in The Viewspaper and Ule. The session was really great as it changed perception of volunteers about purpose of education and made them rethink about where the current education system is leading to.



Some key take away points from the session were:
1. Purpose of education should be three-fold:
(a) To provide helping hands to students.
(b) To make students unleash their imagination.
(c) To make students learn through mistakes.
2. A famous quotation of Albert Einstein goes as "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." Since rote learning has become vital component of current education system, imagination is facing huge ignorance. Overall, education is standardizing children and making them lose imagination.
3. According to Sir Ken Robinson - Creativity is as important in education as literacy because of following reasons:
(a) One can't predict what the future is going to look like. Students starting school in 2006 will use their knowledge and learning till about 2065; by then the world around will be drastically changed. So, it is better to prepare students to face novel situations than to restrict their brain to think only in current scenario.
(b) If education is about empowering individuals then the best way to do this will be enabling them to think of themselves. This in turn is possible only if we encourage students to be creative.
4. Citing Sir Ken Robinson again - If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will not come up with original. With age creativity fades away, so it's best to trigger creativity early in life. This can be done in following ways:
(a) Encouraging students to make mistakes.
(b) Better than last point, help students find a way out of mess they create through their mistakes.
(c) Mistake = Missed Take. In Bollywood, single scene involves numerous missed takes, but that never means that producer and director quit in between. So, a student should also take mistake as a new learning rather than as a lost opportunity.
5. A famous quotation of Pablo Picasso goes as "Every child is an artist, the problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." Current world scenario is well depicted in another quotation of Sir Ken Robinson, which goes as "We don't grow into creativity we grow out of it or rather we get educated out of it." This scenario is also well evident from current priority of most of educational institutions which is as follows:
Highest Priority --- Maths, Science and Language
Mid Level Priority --- Humanities and Social Sciences
Lowest Priority --- Music and Arts
Beyond Consideration (taken only as pastime) --- Dance
However, creativity honing ability goes down consistently from bottom to up in this list.
6. Learning already discovered facts is important to ensure following things:
(a) One does waste precious and limited time in reinventing wheel.
(b) There is some base knowledge over which creativity can be applied to bring new things into existence; otherwise imaginative thoughts will take a person to various directions leading ultimately to nowhere.

Some informative and impactful videos referred during the session were "Sir_Ken_Robinson__Do_schools_kill_creativity", "RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms" and "Sir Ken Robinson - Changing Paradigms".

Awareness Campaign - KAP Study, at Hauz Khas

Over the period of June 2012 to December 2012, CRY Delhi volunteers did an extensive study of Knowledge, Attitude and Practices (KAP) of potential employers of children, specifically dhaba and garage owners, towards child labor in all 9 districts of Delhi. The study revealed that many such employers were unaware of laws against child labor in India. As a follow up action, campaigns are being planned by volunteers in the areas in which the field research was done, to make the respondents aware of the laws. First event in the series was held at Hauz Khas on 20th Jan 2013. During the event, volunteers organized a rally from Hauz Khas metro station to  Aurobindo market, via Hauz Khas market. Throughout the way volunteers held in their hands placards and posters created by them to convey the intended messages to the public around. The messages conveyed were mostly laws against child labor in India and priority of education over employment in a child's life, and were conveyed by means of beautiful drawings, short poetic text and simple text. Moreover, throughout the way volunteers sung, with music of guitar, song Mera Bhi To Adhikar Hai and other songs expressing desire of children to study. On the way a stall was set up at Hauz Khas market where volunteers stopped for some time to sing the songs, display the posters and placards, and interact with shopkeepers of the market. Many shopkeepers and public around reached out to the volunteers and learnt about the messages conveyed by the volunteers in detail. A similar purposeful stop was made at Aurobindo market too and it marked end of the event.

Volunteers' Visit to Sanjay Camp on 23rd Dec 2012

On 23rd Dec 2012, a group of CRY volunteers visited the newly established CRY PAG (Public Action Group) at Sanjay Camp. Objectives of the visit were:

1. To assess quality of education imparted to children by schools in the region.

2. To learn about teaching related problems faced by children studying in schools in the region.

3. To learn about status of distribution of winter uniform in MCD schools in the region.

Children with whom we interacted ranged from small kids coming regularly to the center for playing to grown up children studying in class 3. In total they were 16 in number, out of which 6 study at MCD schools, 5 study at private schools, 1 takes private tuition as substitute for school and 4 are small enough to attend school. To assess knowledge of the students we distributed a sheet, having counting exercises, to them. Most of the children were able to finish the exercises correctly by themselves; few who could not were supported a lot by their friends around. It was great to see spirit of collaborative learning among the children.

The children were quite amicable and eloquent. They mixed up with volunteers easily and, when asked about teaching related problems faced by them in their respective schools, they responded sincerely. Except for 2, all children getting education somewhere (school or tuition) were happy with their teachers. One of the exceptions was a boy who was taking private tuition as substitute for school. He told that his teacher beats him even for trivial issues, such as, looking around at time of study. Another exception was a girl going to private school. She told that during her classes, her class-teacher is busy throughout in talking over mobile, so she gets little to learn from the teacher, rather school. We tried to get opinion of rest 10 students, who were going to study somewhere (school or tuition) and were happy about teaching facility there, about being beaten by their class teachers. They all believed that it is usually their mistake which causes teacher to beat them and that punishment for their mistake will urge them not to repeat the mistake.

Then we moved ahead to our third objective and inquired the children studying in MCD schools about whether they received winter uniform or money in lieu this season. All 6 such students had received winter uniform or money in lieu. In fact, 5 had received uniform and 1 who got money in lieu purchased uniform using the money. It was great to learn about this fact amidst regular news of delay in winter uniform distribution at MCD schools.

Authors: Jayanti Bhatia, Divyanshu