Mountain Children’s Foundation
Changing the way the world perceives and works with children
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MCF'S Programmes RTI extension Programme (supported by UMA) Uttrakhand Mandal of America (UMA) is a non-profit, voluntary organization. Their mission is to nurture a strong network of people around the rich and diverse heritage of Uttarakhand and to develop and implement some impactful programs in Uttarakhand state based on the consensus and contributions of the members. In 2010, UMA is supporting MCF through its partner Chahat to reach out to train 150 children in the Right to Information Act (RTI) in five villages -Bana, Gujar, Harigaon, Kaphali and Burasi of the Dhari block, District Nainital. Workshop on the Juvenile Justice Act (supported by Lisle Inc.)Lisle Inc. is committed to broadening the ideal of a global community and increasing the appreciation of all cultures. It does so by bringing together persons of diverse religious, cultural, sexual, political, and racial |
backgrounds to interact with each other,and to reflect upon their experiences. Lisle is committed to an educational process which emphasizes cooperative, democratic leadership and participation. 42 young people from 18 communities around the state of Uttarakhand will meet in Dehradun for a workshop focused on issues of children’s safety and welfare, especially as they pertain to the state’s Juvenile Justice Act, whose protections for children have never been implemented. They will take the concepts they have learned back to their communities and continue to talk about and work on issues of child safety there, so the ultimate impact will be a population of approximately 3000 people. It will hopefully also foster in them a greater sense of justice and commitment to the safety of the weakest in their communities. Taking RTI with World Vision to Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh - Training of Trainers On the 20th and 22nd of October 2010, Aditi P.Kaur and Dwarika Prasad Nauni of the Mountain Children's Foundation Dehradun conducted a two day TOT facilitators’ workshop on the Right to Information which was hosted by World Vision Program Monitoring Office Bhopal. A total of 48 participants were present from 9 ADPs in Madhya Pradesh, 5 ADPs from Chattisgarh and 2 children groups.This programme would directly impact 450 children and indirectly extend to all the children in the ADP's target area. The MCF has also created a manual for the ADPs to follow to ensure that the children were able to use RTI effectively to help the villages and their communities. Extension of the Right to Information Programme (supported by Asha-SV) Following the remarkable impact of last year's RTI campaign Asha-SV is supporting the MCF for another year. This project will help another 1,950 young people tap the power of India's Right to Information Act (RTI) to improve their communities. It will include 65 village-level workshops between May 2010 and April 2011 through which young people will learn to file applications as well as follow up on unsatisfactory answers through the RTI appeal process. In addition 650 young people who participated in last year's RTI workshops will help teach their communities about the law through 13 one-day events. Connecting children with the elderly through baal panchayats (supported by Give2Asia) Give2Asia, founded in 2001 by The Asia Foundation, promotes and inspires philanthropy by delivering services that meet the needs of donors and the Asian communities they care about. For the year 2010, Give2Asia has formed a partnership with the Mountain Children’s Foundation in Uttrakhand, India, to empower the young people to make positive changes in their lives and communities by providing a forum from which they can speak and be heard, access resources and take action. The MCF plans to hold two day workshops with 5 partner organisations which would impact a total of 150 children.
Each workshop will be a carefully structured two days full of discussion and activity with the children that will build their leadership and presentation skills and teach them about working together. Through these workshops the children will discuss issues concerning them and will be encouraged to build strong organic and concerned communities through their ability to interconnect and build networks across various local sub-groups and identities within the village, including making their own “bal sangathans” (children’s groups) in their villages. Bringing the Right to Information to the Grassroots through Children (supported by Asha SV) The Silicon Valley chapter of Asha for Education has formed an unprecedented partnership with the MCF to help young people tap the power of the Right to Information Act (RTI) to improve their communties. The project will involve more than 2,700 children in gathering information about the current situation in their communities, especially with regard to their school facilities, and teach them how to use the RTI to learn about the resources available to their villages. These children will then be able to teach the rest of the community. By learning about government schemes available to their community and seeing the gap between the money allocated and the results on the ground, we believe the children—and through them the community as a whole—can improve the quality of education, water and sanitation and a host of other problems that plague rural areas. Community Engagement Workshops (supported by Lisle Inc. & ERC) Lisle International, an organization that pioneered the concept of youth involvement and exchange programs more than 70 years ago in partnership with the Education Resource Center (ERC) in New Delhi, presented the MCF with a grant for nine localized community engagement workshops across the state of Uttarakhand. The MCF added one more workshop to the project to include a small but determined children-run chapter of the MCF in the district of Dehradun.) The grant enabled MCF to hold 10 localized workshops across the state and provided a much-needed opportunity for the MCF to strengthen some existing partnerships while helping new partners with an activity that showed them first-hand how to tap into the energy of children. The purpose of these workshops was to motivate young people to get involved in their communities while helping strengthen our network by reaching out to some of our newer partners with an activity in which they could participate and from which they could see tangible results. Each of the workshops was followed with a visit by MCF facilitators some months later, when the gathered the children and asked about their activities and achievements since the workshop. Helping Teenage Dropouts (supported by Govt. of Uttrakhand, Mahila Samakhya Project) Mahila Samakhya, a program under the Central Ministry of Women and Child Development, works with adolescent girls and women in Uttarkashi, Tehri, Udham Singh Nagar, Chapawat, Nainital, and Pauri. In June 2007, at the request of the director of the Mahila Samakhya,the MCF partnered with the Uttarakhand Government's Mahila Samakhya project to help girls who had dropped out of school, acquire the skills they needed to support themselves. The MCF conducted two workshops for Mahila Samakhya to help build self-confidence and communication and leadership skills in these young women. The MCF trained 29 members of the Mahila Samakhya’s facilitating and teaching team on the MCF model of working with children’s groups as well as child rights, how to build self-confidence, leadership, and communication skills among the teenage girls they help. This was followed in October with the MCF facilitating three workshops for the Mahila Samakhya’s Mahila Shikshan Kendra. These training sessions, which included more than 40 girls each, took place in the districts of Udham Singh Nagar, Chapawat and Nainital. The MCF facilitators demonstrated the dramatic difference in children’s attitudes and motivation that can be achieved by simply listening to the girls and getting them engaged. In the workshops, through games and other confidence building activities, the girls learned about issues such as the importance of birth registration, how to make a bal panchayat, and how to be proactive members of their community, which they could then share with their communities when they returned home. Status Report by the State of Uttrakhand on the UNCRC (supported by SBMA/PLAN) Supported by SBMA/PLAN MCF focused on the Status Report by the State of Uttrakhand on the UNCRC and the survey conducted by the children on the status of the UNCRC. Every five years, each country that has signed the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), is required to produce a country report documenting the work they have done on issues of child rights such as guaranteeing the safety, health, education, identity, inclusion, etc. of all children in the country. The UN also asks other organizations and civil society groups to produce additional, “alternate” reports to supplement the official government report. State Level Workshop on Uttrakhand's Child Policy (supported by Pradeshik Bal Kalyan Parishad, Govt. of Uttrakhand) The Woman Empowerment and Child Development Department and the Pradeshik Bal Kalyan Parishad (State Children’s Board), a semi-autonomous government board dedicated to the development and support of a child policy hosted a workshop on Children’s Day (November 13-14, 2006), and asked the MCF to help put it together. In this unique meeting, the children sat directly across the table from representatives of the major line departments of the state government, including the departments of health, education, forestry, and village self governance (panchayati raj). This was no usual meeting in which the adults droned on as the children listened passively. Instead, the children were active participants in a two-way dialog with government officials, many of whom had never before had the opportunity to see things from the perspective of the state’s young people. During the workshop, the government also organized a press conference in which the young people got the opportunity to ask questions of the journalists. The children took this opportunity to express their concern that the media rarely bothered to cover their efforts or to listen to what the children had to say Based on what the children had to say and on India’s National Action Plan 2005, the Bal Kalyan Parishad created the outlines of a child policy. Much remains to be filled in, especially in terms of data and process, but a bare structure that can be built upon now exists and is a direct result of these child advocacy efforts and the unique and remarkable level of participation and support for child participation demonstrated by the Uttarakhand government. Disaster Mitigation and Management Workshops (supported by ERC) The state level Disaster Mitigation and management workshop was funded by the Educational Resources Centre (ERC) and was attended by 57 children from 6 districts of Uttarakhnad. The 4-day workshop focused on teaching children about disaster preparedness and what communities can do to reduce their risk in the event of a natural disaster. The hope was that the children would carry this information back to their communities. Another important aim was to show the government how they could work with children and foster more proactive partnerships on disaster mitigation between the government and rural communities. This hope was reinforced by the decisions of the district administrations of Nainital and Dehradun to hold follow-up disaster preparedness workshops with children in their districts. Setting up of Baal Panchayat Level Libraries (supported by Barton Foundation) One of the greatest needs of the children in rural Uttarakhand is for more educational resources. To that end, the young people of the MCF, working with our partner organizations in the districts of Pithoragarh, Nainital and Uttarkashi, have been setting up small libraries in their local community. In most cases, they used their own money, along with old school books to fill the library. A grant from the Barton Foundation enabled the MCF to supply books to 10 libraries set up by MCF groups.
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The Mountain Children's Foudation, 63-A Vyom Prasth, G.M.S Road,Dehradun, Uttarakhand 248001, India |
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