Brighter Future for 4500 Orphan children in India

This time all the CSA staff were busy forming and running of Children's committees at the children’s home CSA is associated with. Its relevance, roles & responsibilities of members – and their active participation………… Officer in Charge of every State (Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh , Maharashtra and Orissa) help to facilitate the setting up of Children's Committees to ensure involvement of children in running of the institution. The committee shall be constituted solely by children. CSA has been mobilizing childcare agencies we work with, to form Children's Committees and we have been successful in guiding children to help form these committees. The children's committees are to maintain a register for recording the activities and proceedings, and place it before the managing committee meeting every month. There are also provisions for setting up of a complaint redress mechanism in every institution and a Children's Suggestion Box – accessible to children – where children can drop their complaints in writing. The underlying purpose is to provide guidance on how to function and equip children in improving their confidence levels, engage in decision making, come up with ideas to improve conditions of the institution, develop educational, vocational & recreational plans, support each other in man aging crisis, make suggestions that would be beneficial to all the inmates. We have helped children with selecting their leaders, explained the roles & responsibilities of each member, get them to conduct periodic meetings, maintaining records and minutes of the meeting. It has been observed that on the whole, children are very receptive and have been enthusiastically participating and contributing their time, talent & ideas for various initiatives. Some of the younger children are still in the process of learning to execute their tasks as committee members but in general are quite excited! Some of the initiatives / tasks that Children's committee members have been managing at all locations, • committee members are keeping stock of hygiene kits supply and following up with their peers to ensure that they are following do's and don'ts shared during oral & personal hygiene awareness sessions In Goa and Mumbai, • 'Health & Hygiene' minister demonstrated hand washing techniques and encouraged their friends to follow In Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha, • members have been planning different recreational & cultural activities on different occasions all by themselves with little or no help either from the institute's management or CSA At one of the children’s home in Orissa Children’s committee members strogly demanded for improvement in the quality of the food they were getting. They successfully made an impact to get the better quality food. This truly is a motivation for CSA team and is an excellent means of empowering children and gaining hands on experience on various life and management skills right there at the Children’s home itself....

Links:

• CSA news letter