A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Hanuman Van Vikas Samiti

Lachmi Kumari and her family along with the rest of the tribal families in her village Kargate in Rajasthan, were forced into bonded labour in the stone mines to pay off their debts. With no other source of income during the non-agricultural season and given that most of the areas in Rajasthan were drought-prone, mining was the only alternative. Like many children her age, Lachmi had to abandon her dreams of studying and instead toil hard in the mines to make ends meet for her family. Fortunately, for Lachmi, all this changed when Hanuman Van Vikas Samiti (HVVS), a CRY-supported project in Rajasthan took up their cause. They met with the communities, created awareness on issues of bonded labour, mobilised them to form co-operatives and lease mines from the government instead. Thus providing better opportunities for the parents in order to eliminate the need for them to send their children to work. HVVS did not stop there. They also started non-formal education centres for the children and helped them move to mainstream government schools

Today children like Lachmi Kumari are attending government schools. They have the power to exercise their basic rights and are free to follow their dreams. Hanuman Van Vikas Samiti continues to bring about sustainable change to the lives of hundreds of children of tribal communities in 29 villages spread over eight panchayats of Girva Tehsil in Udaipur district of Rajasthan

The approach

• Education for all children by starting non-formal centers and mainstreaming them into the government schools.
• Strengthen the existing government schools in the region.
• Mobilise the community, create awareness on issues like bonded labour, health care & hygiene related issues
• Providing training and organisational inputs that ensure the accountability and effectiveness of the programme
• Work with the communities towards creating alternative income generation sources

The results

The communities earlier exploited by the mining industry, today have formed a co-operative society thereby increasing their household income by threefold. The members also decided not to send their children to work in the mines. Instead they are demanding educational facilities for their children to the extent that the community has also pressurized their panchayats to pass a resolution for improved educational facilities.

CRY's role

• Funding the non-formal education centres and balwadis (pre-primary centres).
• Funding the community organisers who brought the community together, giving them a perspective on their rights.
• Helping HVVS plan campaigns and programmes aimed at mobilizing the community.
• Providing training and organisational inputs that ensured the accountability and effectiveness of the programme.
• Linking the child rights agenda with the macro issues of livelihood.
• Linking HVVS to other NGOs through the state and the country, thus enabling them to share experiences and learnings.

This, in a nutshell, is what CRY attempts to do with each of its hundreds of organisations and thousands of communities it works with. The core of which is the belief that each child has rights that society and the state owe her - the right to survive, to develop, to be protected against exploitation and to participate in the decisions affecting her future. So when the work done by HVVS enables Lachmi fulfill her dream of an education, HVVS has only ensured that her family, the immediate community of which the family is part of and the local bureaucracy have all recognised this right of Lachmi's - the right to an education.