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Stories of change

Stories of change

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Child Champion Saleha Khan shatters the taboo around menstruation

  • Tue 10 Oct 2017

Menstruation is one hush-hush topic that is usually avoided by our parents, teachers and the community. For millions of women in India, the struggle begins with the lack of basic awareness about menstruation followed by not following the right menstrual health and hygiene practices. 17-year-old Saleha Khan from Govandi slums in Mumbai, our Child Champion, has been conducting training and orientation sessions on this issue in her neighborhood. 

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For Teenager Veerpal, Marriage is a Thing of Past

  • Mon 9 Oct 2017

If you are able to read this, it means that you have been lucky enough in life to get good education and pursue your aspirations. Everyone is not this fortunate, especially the girls in India. This is evident from the fact that 30% girls in India are wed as minors, hence depriving them of their change of fulfilling their aspirations. Read how 14- years-old Veerpal from Fazilka, Punjab was saved from being a child bride and is now working towards her ambition of becoming a police officer.
 

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Marriage is no Child’s Play: Child Champion Shailendra Prevents Child Marriages in Rajasthan

  • Sun 8 Oct 2017

 17-year-old Shailendra Singh’s soft nature makes it hard to believe that he is an active and child rights crusader. The extremely mild-mannered boy, hailing from Bijalpura village in Rajasthan, is a young lad who has prevented five marriages in his village besides rescuing 33 children from child labourers. When it came to children’s rights, the situation in Shailendra’s village was one big mess. High incidence of child marriage, large-scale discrimination against backward class and females, a large of children – especially girls – out of school: all these scenarios were common and acceptable.

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No More Child Labour, No Child Marriage: Rumi has come a Long Way

  • Fri 6 Oct 2017

Living in an unfamiliar city away from her family, washing utensils, sweeping and mopping the floor and performing other household chores, 9-year-old Rumi had started considering that this will be her fate for the rest of her life. Born in an extremely poor household of Burmu Village in Jharkhand, she was sixth eldest among eight children of her parents. Her parents had sent her to Patna to work as a domestic help. On her return to her village, Rumi started with school but her parents were not interested in educating her.

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Monu Goes Back to Where He Belonged: School

  • Mon 2 Oct 2017

Incessantly loading bricks on his head, sweating it out in the scorching heat throughout the day and getting paid a meagre amount for this work - this was definitely not the kind of childhood 14-year-old Monu* wanted. After his father’s early demise, his mother and two elder brothers worked hard as a labourers to support his studies. Once Monu completed Class, 8th, the family pulled him out of school as they believed that with his basic education over, he was now ready to earn for himself and the family. Monu had started working as a child labourer. Eventually, our 'Child Sensitive Social Protection Programme' team in his village in Dungarpur (Rajasthan) identified him as an out-of-school child. Read more to know how our team worked relentlessly to send the boy back to the place where he truly belonged: school.

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