Day 1

The two day workshop was organized at Surbhi Palace Dehradun, by the MCF. Sixty four children from 13 district (13 Partner Organizations) under the Umang programme (SBMA/PLAN) participated in the work shop.

The workshop started with the “Dia” lighting ceremony by two of the youngest participants Jagriti from KAGAS Udhamsingh Nagar and Prince Kumar from Dehradun . This was followed by a welcome note from Mr Sudhir Bhatt, Chief Facilitator, MCF on the Baal Manch . The participants were from different district and in order to bring about cohesion Mr. Bhatt conducted an ice breaking game for the participants .  

The children then got down to the business at hand by viewing a presentation by Mr. Bhatt on the Status report compiled by the State of Uttrakhand on the UNCRC Report.
Education, Birth Registration and Discrimination were what the children felt most strongly about and these issues were taken up for discussion. There were many discrepancies that the children observed between the ground realities and the States Status Report, which had been incorporated in what was called the Alternate Status report on the UNCRC.

Birth registration : was an important agenda of the workshop. According to the state report birth registration is considered as the first stage of providing an identity to the child and it is also a basic human right for the child. The state report also mentioned free and compulsory birth certificate for all children upto the age of 21 days. (Table 1) The report claims that this process is not very rigid and is accessible and available to all. However, the children in their Alternative Report observed during their survey of 10 schools in each district that most  people were not aware about birth registration or its process and they said the process was not easy to comply with . Sweta from Horra walla, Derhadun mentioned that the primary school teacher and pradhan from her village were not aware of the birth registration process. Sonia from Haridwar said that there were 1751 children in a primary school without birth certificates. Though the State in its report has indicated an 80% birth registration in Uttarkashi however, Pankaj from the same area reported that no one had a birth certificate in his locality. At the same time Manish from Almora mentioned that their “baal panchayat” did 50 birth registrations with the help of an NGO called SUDHA.  

Education : The next agenda under discussion was education. The State R eport claims free universal education for every child, night schools for working children and Kasturba Gandhi School for socially backward girls. The government provides RS 40,000/- to every Primary school to build a boundary wall and Rs 4,000/- for maintenenace of the school building. T o ensure quality and universal education the schools are also provided with a sum of Rs500/- for Teaching Learning M aterials (TLM), Rs.2,000/- for beautification , Rs.20,000/-for drinking water facility and Rs15,000/- for toilets . However, the children found the ground reality to be very different . T he P rimary S chools they surveyed were in very poor condition . Most schools have no boundary walls. M ost teachers did not use the TLM even if they have the material. T he number of class rooms were insufficient - Shweta from Dehradun pointed out that some school had only 3 rooms for 5 classes. The conditions of toilets were very bad and most of the time the toilet remains closed due to a severe lack of water. T hose that were opened were used only by the teachers . T he children were not allowed to use the toilets. Many schools were flooded with rain water during the monsoons due to leaky roof.
There was also a dearth of adequate trained teacher in the primary school. In m any primary schools there was only one teacher to teach all five primary classes. Sonia from H aridwar mentioned that in the village Panjeneheri there were 160 girls working in a factory but there is not a single night school for them and they are not aware about such a school . There are nineteen disabled children in ten primary school but none of the schools have a ramp contrary to the claims laid by the state report. Mid day meal is a very important scheme of the state government. Under this scheme children are to get nutritious and healthy food but in the inreality the situation is very different. Food of very poor quality is distributed in the primary school. As supply of gas cylinders is erratic at the best of times in the interior villages food for the mid day meal is cooked on wood fires. Teachers send the student to collect wood from the forest for this. Deepa from Champawat also mentioned that due to the lack of “Bhojanmatas” and “Sahayikas, the mid day meal was not served in some schools. However, Vinod Pandey from Almora ga ve a positive example of Saloja prathamik vidyalaya, where a teacher provides gas for mid day meal at his own cost.

Discrimination : The State's Report states that there is no discrimination of any type in the state run programs. However, the children in their alternative report mentioned that discrimination exists in terms of caste and sex. Even bhojanmata misbehave with the lower caste children. Most of the parents send the boys to private schools and girls to the government school because the condition of a private school is comparatively better than the government schools. For admission to a private school a birth certificate is mandatory. Therefore, the chances of a boy child having a birth certificate are much higher than that of the girl child.  The day ended with a presentation of colorful cultural programs by the participants .

Back

DAY 2

In the next day the  children were asked to present cartoons and demo radio programme on all the issues discussed the previous day. The cartoons were beautiful and relevant to the issue, Finally, Pankaj from Uttarakashi and Deepa from Gairsain conducted a demo radio programme on the points raised by the children in their Alternative Status Report. This demo highlighted how radios programs can be used to create aware and increase child participation.

Mr. Cyril Raphael Advisor SBMA , Dr. Kala IIT Delhi, Mr. G.S. Rawat (Secretary, SBMA) Mrs Kusum Ghildiy al Secretary SEED inaugurated the Book n amed “Baal Sa ngathan Ebam Baal Adhikar” Mr Gopal Thapliyal from SBMA /PLAN lauded the book mentioning that the book discussed both child rights and participation of the children. After the inauguration, the book was distributed amongst the children.  

Mr. G.S. Rawat , Mr. Suresh Balodi, Gajendra Nautiyal and Ms. Aditi Kaur praised the efforts of the children for their hard work on the Alternative Status Report. Mr. Cyril Raphael congratulated the children for their efforts to make Pabam a success. At the same time he mentioned that it is important for the senior members of the baal panchayat, i.e who are crossing the age limit of 18 years keep continuing the good work by trying to mobilize other baal panchayats. The workshop ended with the feedback session, where the children shared their experience and learning’s from the workshop and from other activities of Pabam.There were also some Uttrakhand children who study outside the State but were keen to attend the workshop. Their feedback was also taken after the workshop and a report is enclosed. 

As this was the first programme of this type (Alternate report on UNCRC) it was extensively covered by both the written media as well as TV.  (Amar Ujala, Dainik Jagaran, Shah times, Garhwal Post, Doon Darpan E-tv etc and Etv telecasted the programme on 22nd May. )

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Submitted by:
Mountain Children’s Foundation
63-A Vyom PrasthG.M.S Road 
Dehradun

Table 1

Data of Birth and Death Registrations for the State of Uttrakhand