It is inspiring to find these kids socially map their slum and engage with the local corporator/mayor/MLA on issues of sanitation, health, education and employment. They prepare comprehensive mobilization maps under the guidance of urban planners and work towards ensuring child – friendly cities. They organize club meetings and follow the legal procedure to approach the authorities. It is remarkable to see that a 6th standard child leader managed to get a sewage pipeline fixed, a 9th standard child leader got the community to build more than 50 toilets under the ODF Scheme and a 12th standard student managed to go to the US for a Conference on Urban Planning and presented a 3D model for dream cities in developing countries.
Their confidence and problem solving skills are absolutely brilliant. Coming from a background where a lot is talked about and debated in the realm of policy/politics/administration/international relations, it’s inspiring to see kids at this age achieve it all on ground. Their experiential learning is far greater than what our textbooks envision to give us. It is so much more realistically appealing than building a virtual knowledge base about development.
By
Syeda Asia
Humara Bachpan-Our Early Childhood Matters 