By Kanika Sinha | Convener
“The act of participation and feeling empowered go hand in hand”. This statement by a panelist in one of the state celebration events to felicitate the Jagriks, puts across the need for a programme like the ‘Samvidhan Live! Be a Jagrik’ quite beautifully. The whole idea of the intervention was based on creating a context where adolescents feel empowered enough to participate in matters that concern them, thereby carving a pathway to becoming Jagriks *wordplay for ‘Jagruk’ (awakened) + ‘Nagrik’ (citizens)+ of the country. We recently concluded a process we started about a year ago with more than 10,800 adolescent girls and boys spread across 6 states. Over 72,000 tasks were performed by these Jagriks impacting a range of themes.
In Bihar, a girl named Chandu (name changed) was able to stop her own child marriage and that of 3 others in her community. In Madhya Pradesh, a young boy ensured that 20 children from his nomadic community were enrolled into school and that they are retained there. We witnessed many such powerful stories of action during this period.
COVID-19 played a significant challenge in the implementation of this intervention. The power of this intervention is experiencing the Constitution in the real world. Due to pandemic and the restrictions on on-ground engagement, a lighter online version of the toolkit had to be developed to enable adolescents complete their journeys. We were also able to take the toolkit to many of the system holders across 9 states. We could give an indepth orientation to more than 930 Programme Officers, Volunteers and teachers from across the National Service Scheme, Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan and KasturbaGandhi Bal Vidyalayas platforms.
Over the last few months, we have been taking the narrative of 'Every Youth a Jagrik and every Space Nurturing Jagriks' forward through several cross-sectoral actions that have resulted in reaching thousands of young people. A framework for Youth Duties and Rights has been developed to support young people in becoming active citizens or Jagriks. In the coming months, we are looking forward to taking this narrative far and wide across the country
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