Story of Change

Child Parliament" Develop Children for Change the Society"

Children’s Parliament workshop at PAPN, Andheri.

A 3 Days workshop was held at PAPN Sangrah from 11– 11 -2017 to 13-11-2017.  Resource person was Mr. Joseph Rathinam from Tamil Nadu. Children came from different Panchayats for 3 day’s workshop with the expectation to learn something new at PAPN as always. PAPN has already started Baal Panchayats in few Panchayats of Sirmour many years back, where children discuss their local issues and try to solve them on their own.

The Concept & Motive of Children’s Parliament

The concept of Children’s parliament is quite similarto Baal Panchayats, which is enrolling children from villages or cities in Children’s parliament and solve local problems. It’s basically a group of children from the age of 6-18 years, here all of them will be ministers. These children will lead the children’s parliament and make their society a better place to live in. Children’s parliament is also about building leadership among children from childhood is one of the reason for starting this parliament.

A Glimpse of 3 Day’s Workshop

Day 1

3 day’s workshop started with the ice- breaking session. Then resource person Mr. Joseph briefed about the concept of Children’s parliament and how a children parliament will look like. Children from different panchayats also shared their experiences of working in Baal Sansad/Panchayats. Some of them have re-admitted school dropouts and other started a rally to get a special bus in their area for school or college students as they used to suffer a lot.

Day 2

The next day children quite opened up, Mr. Joseph explained the role and responsibility of every minister in the children’s parliament. He also told how Children’s parliament will be held in every Panchayat. Starting from the welcoming note to vote of thanks. There is a format for conducting the parliament, so it becomes easy for everyone to discuss their issues and work on that later. After explaining the roles and responsibilities and format for conducting the session students were asked to give a demonstration. The session was quite interesting as the resource person moderated it and helped them to head in the right direction. There were so many games/physical activitiesinvolved to keep these children interested in the workshop.

Day 3

On the last day these was a session with Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM)Sangrah where some other schools were also invited. Children gave a presentation on sustainable development which was later appreciated by SDMSangrah Mr. Jeevan Singh Negi . SDM spoke about the relevance of children’s parliament and said he is happy to support this at any cost.

Mr. Joseph also presented some data about different children’s parliament in the country and the issues they have raised and solved so far. The session ended on a good note, where children from different villages gave a demonstration how they will conduct the parliament back in their respective villages. This was appreciated by all.

Sumitra Sharma

sumitrasharma.papnsirmour@gmail.com

098169-25128

The Stories of Struggle & Change from Sirmour.....................

The Stories of Struggle & Change from Sirmour..........

People's Action for People in Need  (PAPN) started its journey in Trans-Giri region of Sirmour District of Himachal Pradesh in June, 1985. Here in this section we will attempt to capture the struggles of the people happened during the course of our intervention and association with the community. The stories of struggle, success and change as PAPN has worked in different areas of Himachal Pradesh over the last few years. The stories are categorized into 4 sections of Land and Livelihood Issues, Caste Based Discrimination/ Dalit Issues, Women’s Issues and Child Rights, though often there are overlapping areas of concern. The attempt has been to document the efforts made by PAPN to alleviate problems of people regarding each of these concerns in different ways, how it has impacted people’s lives and the changes this has resulted in. The document uses a combination of various methods of transcription- ranging from group discussions, interviews, first person and third person accounts of their stories and journeys.

Hi! I am Neema (age 12 years) daughter of Babu Ram from Bachhaina village of Sirmour District, HP. We are a family of eight persons including my grandmother, parents, two sisters and two younger brothers. We have about 3 Bighas of cultivable land which is not enough to produce food grain that can meet all the requirements of our family. As a result, my father has to go to Nahan and Shimla for casual labour work for most part of the year. Because there is no one at home while my parents are working, my elder sister Radha (age 13 years) and I have to assist our mother and grandmother in field work and grazing the goats and other cattle. The workload at home along with economic constraints made it extremely difficult for my sister and me to attend school regularly. I failed in class III for two years, as I was unable to find the time to concentrate and study when at home. Ultimately, education became a second priority for us and we would attend school sparingly, only when we could take some time off from domestic work. For most part, we had dropped out of school.

I got to know about PAPN’s work in our village a few months back. Some of our neighbours told me about their awareness generation programmes and initiatives towards educating the community about their rights and entitlements. When one of the social workers from PAPN came to know about our dropping out from school, she came and had a talk with us, where she spoke about the importance of education. When we told her about our family situation, she came to my house, counselled my family and implored my mother and grandmother to get us re-admitted in the school. She spoke to them about the importance of education, especially for girls and women. One day she came with a school bag, note books and other study materials, told our mother that the organisation would be supporting us in our education and assisted us in getting readmission in school. My family agreed now that the financial burden was lesser and they were more aware about the value of education. I am very happy now with my friends in the school. The continuous efforts and support of PAPN enabled me to continue my education. When I grow up, I wish to join the government services and help in eradicating poverty from my village. 

Parul Kalra - MSW student of from Punjab University, Chandigarh made this short video to capture the interventions of PAPN in Bhainsa-Tibba and Kharak-Mangoli urban slums of Panchkula during her internship in June, 2017 with People's Action for People in Need.

Punjab University, Chandigarh interns at PAPN

Parul Kalra, Priyanka Tanwar and Harkrishan Singh Seerha, all students of M.S.W. from Punjab University, Chandigarh during their internship with PAPN, Sirmour, Himachal Pradesh.

Video Credits: Parul Kalra

The Tailed Bandits

    

The Tailed Bandits - a short film on 'Monkey Menace in Sirmour, Himachal Pradesh' was made by Alex Rohit, Deepesh Shrivastava, Himanshu Mishra and Sourabh Gupta - students of B.Tech. 1st Year of Petroleum Engineering from School of Petroleum Engineering, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Gandhi Nagar, Gujarat during their 3 Weeks Rural Internship from 10th December to 31st December, 2010 with our Organisation – People’s Action for People in Need, Andheri, Sirmour, HP

From Childline Sirmour

जिला सिरमौर की भोगौलिक स्थिति विपरीत होने के कारण यहाँ सुविधाओं की कमी हैं चाइल्ड लाईन टीम को बच्चों तक पहुँचने के लिए सडकों की सुविधा न होने के कारण कभी कभी तीन से चार घंटे का सफर पैदल तय करना होता हैं ऐसे इलाके शिलाई व् संगडाह ब्लॉक में ज्यादा हैं चाइल्ड लाईन टीम ने जुलाई महीने में पांवटा ब्लॉक, रेणुका व् संगडाह ब्लॉक में लोगों व् बच्चों को 1098 के बारें में जागरूक करने के लिए दूर-दराज के इलाकों में आऊटरीच और नाईट आउटरीच किए हैं जहां पर फोन टेस्टिंग भी की गई 1098 से नंबर संपर्क में हो रहे है या नहीं और पैम्पलेट्स व् पोस्टर द्वारा लोगो को जागरूक किया जाता हैं | शिल्लाई ब्लॉक में आने वाले रा० व० मा० विद्यालय लोज़ा व धुमखर में लोगो के बीच ओपन हाउस किये गए |

जुलाई 2017 में सिरमौर चाइल्ड हैल्प लाइन, नाहन के पास अलग -अलग तरह के मामले आये हैं जिसमे 3 मेडिकल के मामलों में बच्चों के 90% मेडिकल बनाए गए, पैंशन लगवाना, बस पास, 07 स्पोंसर के जिसमे बच्चों को कापियां, बैग, दवाईयां मुफ्त दिलवाई गई, बच्चों को पोषाहार व् ब्लड कैंसर जैसे मामलों में बच्चों को सरकार से 40,000 हजार राहत राशि दिलवाई गई इसके अतिरिक्त एक मामला बाल विवाह, 02 गुमशुदा बच्चों के मामले, 05 मामले भिक्षावृती व् 03 बच्चों को भावनात्मक सांत्वना व् 02 मामले चाइल्ड एब्यूज व् स्कूल में बच्चों के साथ की जा रही मारपिटाई के मामलों अदि में बच्चों को राहत दिलाई गई 

जुलाई महीने में चाइल्ड हैल्प लाइन सिरमौर में आने वाले धार्मिक स्थल त्रिलोकपुर बाला सुन्दरी मन्दिर परिसर का आउटरीच किया जहां पर बहुत से बच्चें अन्य पड़ोसी राज्यों से भीख मांगने आते हैं जिन्हें हमारी टीम द्वारा कई बार बच्चों सहित उनके माता पिता की भी काउंसलिंग की गई हैं जिससे उनकी संख्या में कमी आई हैं |जुलाई महीने में चाइल्ड लाईन सिरमौर के पास 23 मामले आए हैं जिसमे सभी मामलों में बच्चों को लाभ पहुँचाया गया  हैं|

Tara Verma

Team Member-Childline Sirmour at Nahan

Email: childlinenahan@gmail.com