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Somaiya Engineering College, Mumbai Somaiya Engineering College, Mumbai: CHILD RIGHTS FIRST CHARTER : SIGNATURE CAMPAIGN Childhood is the most treasured, nurtured and enlightening phase of an individual’s life. Still seeing children work along streets, in hotels, households, factories have become commonplace in our country. Tiny kids, when they should be in schools, are seen toiling in dingy workplaces. The future of our country, heading to darkness taking all its little warriors - This concern gave way to Child Rights Act. And surely enough these activities concerned me no end. Becoming part of the CRY family gave direction to my desire towards betterment of these not - so - fortunate brethren of mine. One such step was doing the Signature Campaign in my college, K. J. Somaiya Engineering College, on 22nd JAN 2007. The signature campaign was aimed at bringing awareness and at the same time assuring the unanimity of all citizens, in support to the CHILD RIGHTS CHARTER. The 'Child Rights First Charter' has been drafted with the belief that providing relief is a short time exercise but to bring sustainable change, one needs to address the root cause of poverty and social exclusion. The Charter makes a demand for more schools, quality healthcare, eradication of child labor, more open spaces for children to play, hygiene and proper housing options and better opportunities for parents, which in turn translates into better care for children. As a lone CRY representative, I was a tad nervous to start with. But the able and unstinted support of my principal and teachers alike, led me through. I got instant approval from the principal. He also suggested the ideal place for the campaign. Next step was building awareness regarding the campaign. The Student’s Council of my college came in with complete support. I made a small team of 7 individuals with well - defined tasks for each one. Two were given responsibility of poster - making. Within a few days, the Fine Arts section of the council created huge posters. Posters with hard – hitting messages were hung all over the college. I held the responsibility of getting official permissions, wherever needed. Two others - the PR guys, took the task pf publicity. The PR people got to business immediately doing rigorous publicity in each and every college. Remaining team members were in charge of setting up the place for campaign. The action began. Each day a meeting was conducted to note the progress made and defining the job ahead. The word had spread. Students got the message loud and clear. Soon the day arrived. Suddenly, when the campaign was to kick start, results of the examinations were announced. It seemed things would fall apart, even before the start as the results are the most feared in an engineering college! But thankfully and inspiringly, my fear was soon diminished with an overwhelming support to the campaign from all quarters. Students turned up in Herculean numbers. Signatures were done. Warm and concerning messages were being given by the students present, all stating their views, observations and expressing complete support. The whole college was buzzing with thoughts and concerns towards the less fortunate kinds. It was electrifying. The result was a double the expected turnover, and an impact created in the hearts of each and everyone, that would be everlasting. A Result day could never get better in an engineering college. Volunteer voices on general motors deptrix event on 14th jan. Sohin Shah, 19 years, a student and CRY volunteer rallying support in the Champs Dip Trix Signature Campaign for child rights, Mumbai: "Basically, CRY was trying to make the people aware of its effort to eradicate child labour. And the volunteers were supposed to take signatures of the people who supported the cause and believed in it. I personally thought it was a great effort and an amazing experience... And yes...the activity definitely made sense. Infact such activities are better than just sitting and critising the way things are taking place. I'm sure it is going to make a lot of difference to the outlook of many people. On the whole issue...and soon there will be many more supporting the cause and voicing their opinions. Please do let me know if more such events are to happen. I would love to be a part of them." Nisha D'silva, 18 years, student and CRY volunteer rallying support in the Champs Dip Trix Signature Campaign for child rights, Mumbai : On the 14th of January 2007 Champs Dip Trix working in collaboration with CRY, organised a Signature Campaign for which a 'blue double decker open top bus' was hired to go on a tour through Mumbai. We - a couple of CRY volunteers, people working for Champs and CRY, and a few others started off at 11:15 am from Colaba and wound up at 2:00 in Shivaji Park. The main theme here was to go around the city and persuade people to sign up and be part of the campaign for the betterment of the children of Mumbai. Our demands are based on the 'Charter on Child Rights' - sufficient schools, open public spaces and playgrounds, incorporation of low cost housing options, more jobs for the parents of these children etc. Slogans were shouted from a-top the bus and we personally approached people telling them about the Charter in general and asking them to sign for a worthy cause. All in all it was an enriching experience. Hope to have more tours in the near future where we can spread to a lot more people! HR College, Mumbai : On the 18th and 19th of January 2007 a Signature campaign was conducted in Hassaram Rijhumal (HR) College by a couple of their students. This campaign was basically to inform everyone about the Child Rights Charter which will be put forth to the BMC during the elections held this year. Some of the demands in the Charter include adequate schools, more job opportunities for the parents of the children, more open spaces, playgrounds etc. The main theme of CRY-child rights and you, being "Ban child labour, not Childhood." The desk was set up in the college canteen, where we anticipated the most number of students. Thanks to CRY we had colourful posters to display and the Charter too for all to see. Those who wished to extend their support towards the campaign signed up on a chart paper while others who were keen on actually becoming CRY volunteers registered themselves. We even gave away hand outs of the campaign document. Initially it was a bit difficult to get the students to sign up as most of them were apprehensive bout the whole thing and some others did not really care and said they're too busy with other stuff to become volunteers but gladly obliged to sign up for the campaign. Things went on smooth enough later. In fact there were a couple of students who actually felt "proud" of being part of a campaign organised by CRY that was really touching. Others were very keen on knowing what the Charter is all about and the other activities done by CRY volunteers .Some felt that just making the charter and signing up on a chart paper was of no use. Then we explained to them that the campaign was conducted all over and on huge scale- colleges, work places and even a bus tour took place in some areas of Mumbai for the same. Then we even went to the staff room and made the teachers join the cause. At the end of the campaign we got about 13 volunteers and 270 signatures which is a decent enough number, this being the first time we did this campaign entirely on our own. And it definitely boosted our confidence a great deal. All the best to all other future endeavours!! Sameer Sherkar The marathon proved to be an enormous opportunity to get our message and campaign noticed to a lot of people and media. All the volunteers were wearing the Yellow CRY t-shirt and were holding either the banners or the posters and marched in confidence as the dream run commenced. As we reached the starting line, when they announced that “Please welcome the team from CRY”, every single camera over there was pointing to us,at that time I realized how much responsibility we had and the way we are going to carry ourselves throughout the marathon will affect image of CRY in either a positive or a negative way. We were very much prepared and had our slogans like “Bal Mazduri band Karo”,”Sabko Shiksha ,Saman Shiksha” and of course “ CRY, Child Right and You”. Also we had a clear message and a way how people can volunteer with us by just sending an SMS ‘stop CL’ to 8558. In the next two hours, we could get ourselves noticed very well than others as we had our slogan and message. Even we had a bite on the news channel “Sahara” and on Radio “Mirchi”. As we reached the finishing line there was a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment came to my mind from the fact that we could contribute to a noble cause and the fact that we could inspire at least few people if not everyone to join us in our campaign. Nisha D’silva Ravinder Agarwal The day was soon to arrive. Enthusiastic as I was, the days in between started getting me restless. 5:00 am was precisely the time I woke up; to the shock of my mom (She is not used to seeing me out of bed before ten am!). The 6:30 am train got me to Churchgate. The starting point was not hard to locate. You just needed to follow the crowd. I landed at the point all charged up. To say that the atmosphere was electrifying would be an understatement. It seemed like a sea of people, jumping with enthusiasm. Rich, poor, young, old, men, women, children, physically disabled people… it seemed like the world had descended at this place. Banjos were being played and people were dancing all around, perhaps feeling an unknown happiness that could not be explained. How much the politicians would have loved to have such a huge and charged up crowd for their rallies. Few minutes to go, silence around. Tiny whisperings and hissing of the breath could be clearly heard. Soon a huge uproar took place. People around me breezed into motion. The race had begun. The race with a cause! Here each one was running with hope, inspiration, enthusiasm and zeal. A few kilometers down the line I could see tiny kids running like someone was holding a bag of goodies at the other end. Old people waking when they were not able to run and young guys firing towards the finish line, one could feel the emergence of desire to help through this race. Most poignant and heart wrenching was to see a polio affected kid running hand in hand with his best to overtake his healthy counterpart. Some gave up early. Some gave up late. Some went up till the finish line. But all had the common fire. Physically they might have dropped short, but mentally they remained till the end. They rose to become a better individual. When I walked back home, I was a changed human being. I knew now, I would keep running for the cause that was defined here. |
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