Create a Safe Space for Children and Youth

Introduction: The Pandemic has affected lives and livelihood all over the world. India, in its efforts to contain the spread of the virus on March 22nd, the Prime Minister ordered a lockdown. It’s been 8 months since India is still battling with the Pandemic and is the 2nd worst affected country in the World. 

In Bhavnagar, Shaishav being involved in training children in Child Rights, Child safety and prevention of Child Labour among the most marginalized section who faced huge challenges during the Pandemic. Financially, the families experienced a crisis due to job losses. The Pandemic has caused high mortality rates which led to social, mental and physical stress. 

The people were confined to their homes with monotonous / no activity which gives a sense of being trapped. Although homes may be considered as a safe place for some, it is not the safest place for all. In-fact with Covid-19 lockdown, there has been a hike in cases of domestic violence, child labour and other forms of violence. Children too have increased vulnerability to domestic violence during this time. Increased job insecurity, financial worry and other such emotions of parents can be a predictor of abuse. Shaishav and Childline are commited to making sure that children are safe. 

Throughout the lockdown, Shaishav team members ensured that the children and their families had support through home visits and phone calls. At any time, be it day or night, the Childline team reached out to those facing any distress. The commitment and dedication of the team members in delivering their services was not time-bound because Childline works round the clock. For Shaishav, “Sky is the Limit”.

CHILDLINE: 

Outreach Programme:

Apart from the rescue operation, Childline team conducts game activities twice a week in the community.

The activity kit which was distributed to its beneficiaries. The team would go twice a week on field to conduct and train children on how to use the Activity Resource kit. If children are unable to follow the game, the facilitators teach 1 activity per week.

The team also goes for outreach to schools, Anganwadi and communities and distributes brochures about Childline and creates awareness about violence, Exploitation, abuses, child labour etc.

Care India Foundation: An Hygiene kit was prepared by Shaishav team with the support and funding from Care India Foundation. Through various conference meeting calls, they planned how to work it out, role of each members, coordinating and what are the criteria for selecting the beneficiaries. With the help of Anganwadi workers and Asha workers, Shaishav team got the approximate number of beneficiaries.

The beneficiaries targeted were 1) Pregnant mothers 2) Lactating mother up to 6 months old baby 3) Asha workers, 4) Anganwadi workers from 20 communities adopted by Shaishav.

The hygiene kit contained Sanitizers, Soap, Mask, hand gloves and leaflet (detailed information about the virus, precaution measures etc).

The 20 communities belonged to 2 zones namely, Urban I & Urban II of Bhavnagar. The table mentioned below is the quantity distributed to the beneficiaries.

URBAN I & URBAN II

Pregnant mother: 275

Lactating mother: 262

Asha Worker: 23

Anganwadi worker: 28

Total: 585  

Shaishav team also created awareness among the communities by taking the loudspeaker and going around with the Autorickshaw, announcing about the virus and its seriousness, what precautions needs to be taken into consideration etc.

Childline Case Report

Childline 1098 is a 24x7 helpline available to children who are vulnerable and in need of help. This team never takes any call for granted, each case is important and they make sure, they reach out to the children who call for help. There have been instances where children call and fool around, but based on these few cases, the team doesn’t take any cases for granted.

Following are the cases reported:

JULY

• Emotional support & guidance: 15 Cases were registered under this section; Since schools were shut, working was 1 way to escape boredom. Some children were found doing packing work. The team counselled the children and parents with several follow-up.
• Palak Mata Pita Yojana: (3 cases) This was an outreach mission to register vulnerable children under this scheme. Rs. 3,000 per month is given to the children who are Orphan, widow or if mother has remarried.
• Missing/lost & Found: (1 case) Due to the lockdown, families were migrating to villages for survival. Due to the crowd at the bus stand, the child couldn’t find the family. The team came to rescue the child and helped find the family immediately.
• Other Intervention: (3 cases) Lockdown has given rise to many problems, violence, stress among the families due to which conflicts are taken place in the family. In this section, parents wanted to separate and this decision creates a huge impact on the child. The team intervened and counselled the families to reconcile.
• Protection from Abuse: (3 cases) In this section, 1 child complained to accuse the grandmother of raising hand, when the team went for home visit, they found out that the child was disobeying the grandmother for studies. The child was furious about this and called children number. Similar story for the other 2 case, it was a false accusation call but the team went on the field to find out the same.
• Shelter: (1 case) The family didn’t have enough resource to take care of the child. The team reached out to the child, unfortunately the shelter home was shut due to Covid-19. The team visit the child’s home and ensured the environment was safe. Only extreme cases are kept in the shelter home, the rest are sent home.
• Sponsorship: (2 cases) Families who could not afford to pay the schools, the team reached out to various donors in order to sponsor the children.

AUGUST

• Child Labour: (1 case) In this case, the neighbour reported a child labour case. The team went to the spot and followed up for 3 consecutive days and on the 4^th day, they raided the work place. They found that the boy was above 18 years and it was not a child labour case after verifying the documents.
• Child Beggar: (1 Case) The team reached out to the child and the family. They had 3 counselling session but the 4^th session was incomplete as the family left Bhavnagar and went to the village.
• Emotional Support & Guidance: (3 Cases) The children worked (to earn pocket money) without informing the parents. The team counselled the child and explained why they shouldn’t work.

SEPTEMBER

• Government schemes: (6 cases) The team went for an outreach and identified 6 cases that can be registered under various Government schemes.
• Medical Help: (1 Case) In the section, 1 child needed medical surgical treatment. Childline supported and guided throughout the medical process.
• Other Intervention: (5 Cases) Due to family disputes, the children were affected. The team intervened and resolved the issues in the family through its intervention.
• Sponsorship: (6 Cases) The team reached out to various donors who could sponsor the children’s education. Due to the lockdown, many families are facing financial crisis. The team helped the families with school fees so that their children are admitted into the School for the academic year.

OCTOBER

• Emotional Support & Guidance: (7 Cases) Due to the lockdown, children were facing many issues at home due family disputes. Children were neglected and left alone as the parents already had a lot to deal with. The team counselled the children and emotionally supported the child. The parents were counselled and informed how the children are being affected and how to deal with this issue.
• Missing Child: (1 Case) The child went missing for 3 days. In this case, the child was found on a mountain hill. The team helped to find the child through rigorous search operation.
• Engagement at early age: 14 cases were reported for getting their children engaged below 18 years of age. The team counselled the parents to wait till the child is 18 years and above, till then he/she should be allowed to study and enjoy childhood.
• Medical Help: (1 case) In this case, the child had a leg problem and needed medical assistance. The team helped with the medical process.
• Other Intervention: (5 cases) In this section, the parents were having conflict which was impacting the children. The team through its intervention, helped resolved the conflict.
• Child Beggar: 1 case of child begging was reported. The team counselled the child and got him engaged with learning activities as a part of his education.
• Child Labour: (2 cases) In this case, children were found to do packing work. Since schools are shut, parents sent them to work so that they can contribute some income to the family.

Webinars:

 Shaishav team conducted webinars as well as attended webinar training on relevant topics.

1)      POCSO: The training was conducted by Falgun Bhai. 12,000 teachers were enlightened about this Act by attending the training online through Zoom meeting.

2)      Preventing Child Marriage: The team attended this webinar in order to gain knowledge in this field.

3)      Child labour &Trafficking: This webinar was organized by Child India Foundation (C.I.F).

4)      Nutrition: Childline team were given training about nutrition and its importance which can be then shared with the community.

5)      Disaster Management & Child Protection in Emergency: The team was trained in this area which is helpful for their outreach and rescue operation.

6)      Technology Assisted care: The team was given training on how to reach out to their beneficiaries through online means.

CHILD RIGTHS TRAINING AND RESOURCE CENTRE: 

Lockdown and its impact on education:

Reducing physical contact has been the most common strategy adopted by the government to contain the spread of Covid-19. It has led most countries around the world to close down their schools for long periods of time. Covid-19 struck us without warning and left the education system scrambling, children were affected as the entire system came to a standstill. Knowing that this deadly virus wouldn’t leave so soon, the education system decided to move to the so-called “digital world” which led to online teaching, exams, lectures etc. 

The world of online education basically meant having sophisticated phones/laptops, strong networks etc. India, having caste and class dynamics, not everyone has access to smartphones. Lack of access to the internet and devices has created a gap in digital literacy, and to worsen the situation, India faces frequent power cuts, when compared to face-face education, online education brings forth significant deficiencies such as absence of opportunities of collaborative learning, lack of human connection and teacher’s supervision. Our Education system is forcing children to do rot learning instead of learning through concept clarity. Children are never taught “How to Learn” so they always remain dependent on schools, teachers, books for learning rather than learning independently.

Throughout the lockdown, Shaishav team members ensured that the children and their families had support through home visits and phone calls. At any time, be it day or night, the Childline team reached out to those facing any distress. The commitment and dedication of the team members in delivering their services was not time-bound because Childline works round the clock. For Shaishav, “Sky is the Limit”.

Training of Trainers:

Shaishav team attending various training session online which could help them and broaden their idea on the development of activities. Various activities were taught to the team which could help the, develop the Activity Resource kits.

Manish Freeman was one among the trainers who had innovative ideas about the activities which would benefit the child in their learning as well as keep them engaged.

In the absence of “formal Schooling”, The Child Rights training & Resource Centre team, along with other team members brainstormed on the idea of “learning through activity”. Thus, activity resource kits were prepared which aimed at engaging children between the age group of 8-18 with games which would enhance their knowledge.

The activity kit which was distributed to its beneficiaries. The team would go twice a week on field to conduct and train children on how to use the Activity Resource kit. If children are unable to follow the game, the facilitators teach 1 activity per week in the community.

1. Gujarat Yuva Manch:

We recently formed the Gujarat Yuva Manch. Gujarat Yuva Manch is basically a platform of different youth collections of Gujarat. When a recent consultation on whether or not age of marriage should increase for the girls was going on, 2,500 different Gujarat Youth Collectives participated and during that discussion the need of such platform on a wider level arise and they saw that the youth is facing lot of difficulties today and such youth platforms should be there to discuss all these issues.

The youths expressed, Marriage is not the first and only of life priority, there are other major issues which needs to be dealt with such as better opportunity for education especially for higher education, as we notice, many states especially in villages do not have access to higher education and therefore many migrate to different places for higher education but there are many pull and push factors which is a big obstacle to get oneself educated is money. When youths migrate, they have to look after their food, accommodation, and fees and not many are able to afford this and therefore access to education should be made easier in terms of laws, schemes, better and easy access to scholarship. Protection & safety measure for women and girls should be reviewed, better employment opportunity for its citizens should be made, Sex Education should be compulsory in schools and colleges, life skill education is important to deal with real life situations, child rights education, equal status for women should be practiced without any discrimination and the youths demand that one should be free to express their political opinions and reside anywhere in the country without fear and being harmed

They should also build their own capacity to handle these issues, and to grow personally and professionally. Gujarat Yuva Manch was formed and all the Yuva who are part of Gujarat meet once a month and they have also formed Yuva Manch working group which handles like that planning, they propose all that planning and are responsible for that implementation so that working groups meet every Saturday. There are 27 Yuva’s in the working group. Shaishav has played a key role in initiating and guiding this yuva manch.

2. Adolescent TOT:

We have a vast experience with working with adolescent girls and boys on protection as well as physical, mental, emotional changes during puberty and life skills. We organized a Training of trainers to share our knowledge. 13 men and 21 women from 11 organizations participated in this training. There will be one more phase of this training. We did the first phase of this TOT in the end of February, however due to lockdown and restrictions on travel and gathering couldn't do the second phase of the TOT. We organized an online meeting with the participants post lockdown. We jointly decide to do a mock training where they can take sessions with other participants every week for practice. These sessions are going on. So far 9 sessions have happened. On average 18-20 participants have participated in each session and took responsibilities to lead sessions. Few participants from very remote areas couldn’t participate due lack of internet access. Their self-confidence and concept clarity has increased and are more prepared to do sessions with adolescents. Some have just started to work with adolescents in small groups and shared that they found online sessions helpful as it helped them to conduct sessions with adolescents.

3. Wenlido TOT:

Wenlido is a personal safety tool for self-defences, specially designed for women and girls and given by women.

Wenlido Trainers’ network has two types of trainers: trainers who teach women and others teach girls. Number of children’s trainers are much less but due to our constant dialogue, many women trainers got interested in learning the children’s modules. We converted our modules in Online mode and did rigourous Online TOT with the women who had earlier done TOT to teach women and now they are able to teach girls also. Because the basic foundation of both is the same and techniques are also similar. We did all visuals through video so they get visual clarity. Thus, we could create a cadre of 16 new apprentices which is the biggest success for this year.