CRY launches Child Rights National Research Fellowships

CRY - Child Rights and You, India's leading child rights organization, has awarded the first CRY- National Child Rights Research Fellowships to six individuals. The Fellowships follow CRY's overall approach that prioritises those communities and issues that are underserved by both State and traditional philanthropy. This year's Fellows will focus on exploring the principle of the "best interest of the child" within the broad framework of justice for children.

Coming from varied disciplines, and intending to research varied dimensions of the subject, the awardees are:

B. Rajeshwari, a PhD student at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University who, will work on Pedagogy and the Construction of Communal Identity in Children: The Case of Shishu Mandirs in Ahmedabad.

Pratibha Menon and Aruna Kashyap, who have worked extensively on child rights from the India Centre for Human Rights and Law, Mumbai. Their research undertakes to Demystify the Best Interests Principle.

Falendra Kumar Sudan, a Reader in Economics at the University of Jammu, who will examine the Economic Implications of Armed Conflicts on Displaced Migrant Children: A Case Study of Purkhoo Camp in Jammu City.

Sachin Jain, a freelance development journalist whose decade-long body of work has focussed largely on the policy aspects of food security, starvation and malnutrition and other social issues. He will work on Exclusion and Violation of Children's Right to Nutrition.

Dripta Piplai, currently pursuing an M.Phil at the Department of Linguistics, University of Delhi, has chosen to title her research Where Children Lose Their Language: The endangered Linguistic Identity of the Rajbanshi Children of North Bengal.

Haroon Mirani will research on the Half Orphans of Kashmir waiting for the fuller life.  A journalist with an MA in Mass Communications, he has reported extensively on the Kashmir valley including the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad Bus incident (2005) and parliamentary and assembly elections since 2002.

The selection committee comprised Dr D.L. Sheth who is a Senior Fellow and former Director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi. He is also the former President of the Delhi unit of PUCL. Dr S.B. Mallik is the Executive Director of BIRSA - a CRY partner in Jharkhand. He also coordinates the Jharkhand Jungle Bachao Andolan. Ms Rajni Bakshi is a writer and journalist. She has written extensively on alternative, more humane models of development. She is the author of Bapu Kuti: Journeys in Rediscovery of Gandhi and is also a CRY trustee. 

Ingrid Srinath, CRY CEO and chair of the selection committee, observes, "Not surprisingly, the Fellowship invitation was seen as an opportunity by over 150 researchers, many belonging to socially excluded communities and from backward regions around the country who sent in interesting and challenging proposals, in seven languages. "It is a sad truth that most research in the areas of childhood and child rights is driven by government programming priorities and by international donors, their worldviews and perceptions. Initiatives that do not fit the academic or NGO framework inevitably dissolve due to inadequate support mechanisms."

CRY sees a need for enabling research and researchers that seek to understand the complex structures and networks within which childhood is lived and child rights are infringed or restored. And this was the rationale behind this initiative. The research results will be available to a broad audience of activists, academics, programmers and the general public through multiple fora, including language translations. It is hoped this will influence the course of the debate on child rights and the best interest principle.

CRY , now Child Rights and You, is India's leading advocate for child rights. Over 27 years, CRY has partnered NGOs, communities, government and the media to eliminate the root causes of deprivation, exclusion, exploitation and abuse.