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Introduction:
MCF workshops provide an opportunity for young people from distant
communities to spend time together and share their concerns, experiences,
and accomplishments. These gatherings build leadership and communication
skills and energize the children to become more active in their communities,
effects that extend far beyond the workshop itself.
Recent
workshops:
January
2008 : Local Community Engagement Workshops
Lisle,
Inc. and ERC, who sponsored our first disaster preparedness workshop
in 2005 are supporting nine localized community engangement workshops
over this coming year. Hosted by a different MCF partner and held
locally, each of the workshops will include about 30 children from
the surrounding area. The purpose of the workshops is to help young
people see themselves as agents for change in their villages, identify
issues they want to address, and develop strategies for how their
children’s group can begin solving those problems. MCF volunteers
will visit each group of workshop participants about 6 months later
to see how they translated the ideas of the workshop into action.
The first workshop, which took place from
January 20-22, taught the children how to use cartoons to communicate
about important issues.
May
2007 : Child advocacy
and Child rights workshop in Almora
The
MCF's year-long child advocacy campaign was wrapped up with a workshop
in Almora in which young people from around the state gathered to
discuss the meetings and discussions the various MCF children's
groups had led over the past year.
Nov.
2006: Follow-up Child Policy workshop
with Uttarkhand government
In
an unprecedented consultation between the Uttarakhand state government
and children, 89 young people from around the state met with government
officials to discuss the formulation of a child policy for Uttarakhand.
In this workshop, senior govenrment officials actually sat down
with the children and listened to their concerns and recommendations
for the child policy.
May
2006: Child Policy in Uttarakhand: A children's
conference
Uttarakhand has no Child Policy for the state. So the children
of the MCF have started the process by presenting Uttarakhand government
officials with list of recommendations with which to formulate a
policy. More than 135 children, and 20 organizations participated
in this conference in Dehradun, which took place from May 18-21st.
Nov.
2005 Follow-up disaster preparedness
workshop in Horawalla
After reading about the disaster preparedness workshops in Pithoragarh
and Nainital (see below), the young people of Horawalla wrote to
the MCF asking for a workshop in their village. The MCF coordinated
with the Dehradun government's disaster mitigation and management
Cell (DMMC) to fund the workshop and bring in experts to speak to
on the topic of disaster preparedness and prevention. But in a striking
example of the principals of the MCF at work, the young people of
Horawalla took the lead in organizing and running the workshop themselves!
July
2005 Follow-up disaster preparedness workshop
in Nainital
Based
on the success of the disaster preparedness workshop in Pithoragarh
(below), the District Magistrate of Nainital authorized a district
level workshop on the same topic. Sixty children participated in
the 2-day workshop, which was organized by the Nainital
Disaster Mitigation and Management Cell (DMMC) and MCF partner
VIMARSH. Dr. R.K. Pande, head of the Uttarakhand DMMC inaugurated
the event.
July
2005: Introductory
MCF Workshop in Horawalla
The
young people of Horawalla, Dehradun, had been writing to the MCF
office asking for help in getting their chapter started. Since we
have no partner organization in the village, MCF staff worked directly
with the children to organize a 1-day workshop to help them establish
an MCF group.
May
2005: Pithoragarh Disaster preparedness
and management
Mountains are prone to a host of natural disasters ranging from
earthquakes to landslides to forest fires. In 1991 a 6.8 earthquake
in Uttarkashi killed nearly 800 people and injured thousands more.
Each year lives are lost in landslides, flooding rivers, and other
disasters. Yet, due to difficult terrain and scarce resources, there
is little in the way of emergency services available in most remote
mountain communities.
June
1-7, 2004: MCF members came to Dehradun for a creative
writing workshop sponsored by Plan International during which they
wrote and edited a daily newspaper.
Also
in June, 2004: MCF members went to the beautiful village
of Raitthal in Uttarkashi for two week-long workshops in May-June.
The workshops, sponsored by SBMA-Plan, each involved 90 children
who stayed with families in the village, and focused on institution
building, children's rights and responsibilities and what they wanted
to do with their lives and careers. Similar workshops were held
in Tehri and Chamoli districts where MCF members also participated.
February
4-7, 2004: In
conjunction with Charities Aid Foundation, India,
the MCF organized a 3-day leadership workshop that
used theater and games to build self-confidence and leadership skills
in MCF members. Though bad weather prevented many children from
attending, 36 young people did make it to the meeting. Download
report in PDF format.
January
5-7, 2004: Almora
held a workshop on diversified agriculture
with a focus on indigenous food crops. The workshop was sponsored
by DASP,UA and SBMA-Plan and run by SUDHA.
Workshops
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