Creating Pathways

Being a small village of 150 households, Rajapur in Maharashtra has no upper primary school. The children residing here, therefore, have to travel nearly 7 km every day to attend school in the neighbouring village. 

A stretch of one-and-a-half km connecting these two villages was a kuccha road (unconstructed).

Due to the poor condition of the road, children preferred skipping classes, especially during the monsoon season. 

Under our Child Rights for Change project, a 12-member Child Protection Committee was formed in the village. The committee members then took up the task to get the road repaired, so that children could easily reach their school. 

With their efforts, the stretch has been levelled for temporary usage. Children have started using the new road and some are even cycling to school. These children are now keen to attend school as the walk to the school is no longer as difficult. 

Today, 11 girls and 9 boys from Rajapur regularly attend higher secondary school and two even go to college.

About the Project:

Child Rights for Change is a long term initiative that aims to make child labour socially and culturally unacceptable amongst parents, farmers, communities and other duty bearers in the major cotton producing states in India. 

The project is underway in 1,882 villages across 4 districts of Gujarat (Ahmedabad, Bharuch, Surendranagar and Sabarkantha) and 4 districts of Maharashtra (Akola, Amaravati, Buldana and Washim).

Recently, we have expanded our efforts to Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. 

Key objectives: 

Through this project, we are strengthening child rights to prevent child labour in the cotton growing areas of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. The programme includes: 

• Direct Action for Change: Removing children from exploitative labour. 

• Strengthening systems for change: Providing quality education in schools and anganwadis.

• Building alliances and constituencies for change: Creating community groups of children and adult to fulfil rights of children 

Achievements:

• Till now, we have reached out to over 4 lakh children under the project. 

• More than 350 villages have been made child labour free. 

• 1868 children's groups have been trained on their rights, enabling them to raise the same at community level. 

• 38, 200 children aged 6-14 years, have been removed from labour and re-enrolled in schools. 

• 12, 437 children aged 15-18 years, have been equipped with vocational skills. 

• The quality of education has been improved in Anganwadi (pre-school) centres and schools through the provision of learning materials, painting educative pictures on the walls and building the capacity of Anganwadi Workers and teachers on child friendly teaching methods. As a result 88, 847 children have been equipped with school readiness skills and 78, 577 children have completed primary education. 

• 92, 892 children and men and women have been made aware of the health risks associated with working in cotton fields. 

• 8, 211 farmers have pledged to not employ children in their fields. 

• Besides children, the project has been able to facilitate 232, 842 women to access social security schemes including the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).