We, the Concerned for Working Children have been working in partnership with children for the past 25 years, to enhance their protagonism and participation and realise their rights. In this document we have put together some of the experiences and perceptions related to children’s participation that we have gathered over the years and tried to convert these into principles and tools that would further the pedagogy and praxis of children’s participation.

For us, it has been an exciting journey and the learning curve has been steep. It has humbled us and shown us how to re establish a relationship with the child within each one of us.

For the children themselves their right to participation is the opening up of a new and exciting experience. For the first time they see the world of adults, they begin to understand how this world works and what they need to do to intervene in it. This experience is often tinged with disappointment, as at times they find that we, adults, haven’t made such a good job of it, but there is also joy in the realisation that we do care and that we have learnt to respect them. What the children need from us is an honest, unbiased and in-depth presentation of the way things are and the tools and skills to enable them to build a better world.

This document is an attempt to share the body of knowledge that we have acquired and also to raise several questions those still require answers.

This is by no means a definitive position as the arena of children’s participation is only marginally explored. In the course of our work, children constantly reveal new dimensions of themselves and these insights constitute a continual learning process for us adults.

This document, however, does not document processes or methodology and only tries to share some conceptual insights.

It is a document to which we will continue to add and modify as our insights widen and as children continue to teach us more about themselves.

Children’s Participation is not a project, it is not event based; it is a running theme through every action or intervention and it requires a major paradigm shift. The understanding of participation and the way it is translated into action varies and seems to be defined by the socio-cultural context of the child and the ideological frame surrounding this understanding. However it is important to arrive at a culturally neutral definition of children’s participation, where the principles are common, though the manifestations may vary according to the situation of children.

When Children’s Participation is seen within the frame of protagonism it takes on another dimension. The right and the ability to advocate on one’s own behalf, to be in control and a part of decision making processes and interventions. This form of participation of children and youth enhances the concept of civil society participation and strengthens democratic processes.

Children’s participation should enhance children’s personhood. Often their individual growth is side lined, especially when they are a part of an organisation. Children’s participation should also be in keeping with their capacity and ability (milestones of development) and contribute positively to the process of children’s growth and development. However, all this operates within the context of children’s rights and their participation is the means by which children realise their rights.

The ‘levels’ of children’s participation are a combination of the nature of children’s participation (individual or collective) and the structures in which they participate. Children may participate as individuals or through their organisations or as representatives of their organisations. Children’s participation may take place formally or informally and with or without structures. Their participation may be initiated by the children themselves or by adults or as a result of a partnership between children and adults. Roger Hart’s Ladder of Participation has actually been rather misleading as it more aptly describes the role of adults viz a viz children’s participation, rather than the levels of participation of children.

The role that adults play in the arena of children’s participation is a wide spectrum. On the one hand it ranges from resisting children’s participation to being facilitators of children’s participation and ultimately, partners. Adults play these roles consciously and unconsciously and their roles could vary depending on the situation and the children they are with.

Children are political, economic, ecological, socio-cultural and spiritual (religious) beings. There are several arenas where children do and can participate that satisfy one or several aspects of their personhood. The arenas of participation are several and varied, the home, school, work, and community, going further to state and international levels.

All the above constitute the ecology of children’s participation. To enable children’s participation to happen constructively and effectively and in a way that is positive for children, they need to be empowered. The three essential elements of empowerment are: an organisation or forum, access to and use of relevant information and access to resources (structural, material, human and financial).

We the adults can play a proactive role if we wish to enable children’s participation. However in order to perform this part adequately, we need to prepare ourselves. This has to be done with utmost seriousness and honesty. And perhaps the first lesson is that we will have to unlearn many things before we can ‘learn’.

The concept of ‘the best interest of the child’, an underlying framework for the realisation of the CRC implicitly guarantees the participation of children in all decisions concerning them and the CRC is the first international instrument that very strongly advocates for the participation of children and their right to form associations.

The CRC may be divided into three areas of focus. They are the three P’s. The articles concerning the protection of children, those related to the provision of services to children and those concerning participation or the recognition of children as political beings with both civil and political rights.

Most of us find it easy to translate into programming the articles of the Convention related to protection and provision. When these are read separately they are easier to translate into action, as it is our (adults) perception of the nature and quality of these articles that we convert into interventions and not those of the children themselves.

Many of us seem to miss the vital link between provision and protection with the right to participation. When read together, this third element gives a whole new dimension to the first two, that children have a right to determine the nature and quality of all protection and provision that they have a right to. In fact this would make it mandatory that all interventions must be designed with the active and informed participation of the children concerned and not by adults alone.

Children have asserted their right to intervene in their environment and change it for the better. As a result many of us have realised that the active and equal participation of children in all matters concerning them is both realistic and beneficial. However in order to enable this we adults and adult led organisations have to examine ourselves critically and redefine our roles, sometimes to the extent of unlearning what we thought to be ‘right’ and reconstructing ourselves closer to the children’s paradigm.

Unfortunately, though children’s right to participation is a much discussed and heavily debated issue, very few have actually been able to translate this into action and make it a ground reality.

However, how do we agree on other aspects that relate to the psychosocial issues related to children? If child marriage is considered harmful in Asia below the age of 18 why is sexual activity permissible for children below this age in the West? Is this related to the development of the individual child or is it a social context that determines what is acceptable and what is not? Or are children living within a ‘larger’ context subject to different socio-cultural paradigms? Is it therefore possible to arrive at a common/universal set of principles in this regard keeping in mind that each child is unique and develops at a unique pace?

On the other hand we also claim that the socio-cultural, environmental, political and economic variations in children’s situations should not be an excuse for diluting the principles of Children’s Rights. How do we reconcile these two?

In several countries of the world, various factors, including the system of education has resulted in social stratification, the increased marginalisation of thousands of people and their political exclusion. This has drastically reduced the participation of civil society. The entire situation is aggravated by the fact that the state is no more accountable and has abdicated its duty and in some cases become the violator of people’s rights. There are no safety nets, no protection for the weak and the entire social fabric is unravelling.

In such situations children find work a preferred option to schooling, as it gives them an illusion of participation, an identity – the feeling of belonging and meaning to life. However this does not encourage the individual’s participation in democratic processes.

C. Upendranath. The Theory, Potential and Challenges of Participation, Exchanges - 1997

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The key to rectify this situation is to enable meaningful, informed and active participation. This also means enabling participation of children and fulfilling article 12 of the CRC. However for children to participate meaningfully they require an organisation or platform where they can come together and share experiences and evolve an identity.

Children are often socialised in discriminatory societies and we need to recognise that children are not always naturally inclusive. It is therefore important to engage with children and young people in order to encourage values of inclusion and recognition and work towards a vision of a participatory democracy.

First of all it is important to recognise that both adults and children are socialised in the same way and that adults socialise children within the dominant socio-cultural paradigm.

Children and adults learn from what they experience at home, community and the world around them. This would include the role models they see, media and television. This experience conditions their perceptions of caste and class, gender, democracy and justice. These perception when and if reinforced by repeated experiences of the same kind, convert into values. These values could be discriminatory and/or democratic depending on the individuals experience and therefore perceptions.

At a community level when a group of people have the same experience and therefore share the same values, these values get converted into culture and sometimes even ideology. This is a spiral and each time the cycle is repeated the values and culture get reinforced unless there is a variation in the experience. However the alternate experience needs to be strong and real enough to counter and transform the earlier experience.

What is therefore required is a ‘re-socialisation’ of both adults and children, including us (the ones who design the intervention). This ‘re-socialisation’ should not be one of ‘brain washing’ but of empowerment. In CWC we refer to it as the triangle of empowerment. (see also page 29).

This empowerment has to address three main areas; the obtaining of strength or power through democratic organisation and leadership; the ownership of information, the access to and analysis and use of information; and thirdly, the access to and use of financial, human and material resources.

However, this process of empowerment has to be grounded in experience that can happen only through the active participation of the individual.

An act of Participation is an act with the body, mind or heart, or all three. This act has to be communicated and therefore communication is a key to participation.

The mere act of participation does not qualify the nature or quality of the participation. It could be an example of positive or negative participation. It is therefore necessary to define what we mean by "Good Participation".

The Ideological frame surrounding participation determines the quality and nature of participation:

Democratic participation or participatory democracy would include the following elements:

• Democratic
• Just
• Accountable
• Transparent
• Inclusive
• Decentralized
• Mutual respect
• Secular
• In Partnership
• Positive discrimination etc:

The resocialisation or empowerment we engage in should address the above points among others.

Many of us are grappling with issues of inclusion and non-discrimination. How does one ensure that an organisation of children includes or enables all children to gain membership and participate equally. Some children’s organisations have grouped all children together and in some cases adults seem to have determined the composition of the children’s organisation based on their perception and interpretation of non-discrimination and inclusion. In CWC we have not followed this approach. We allowed children to form organisations based on their need, commonality of issues and concerns and comfort. They fell into natural groupings and we did not impose our thinking on them. Working children wanted to come together to address their problems and they formed Bhima Sangha. Working youth wanted to come together not only to address their problems but also to directly intervene in political structures and they formed Namma Sabha. Kids who were differently-abled wanted their own forum, just as school children. Now the kids want a pan all organisations for all children and are trying to work out the structure and functioning of this pan all organisation child rights organisation or federation. This is taking time because the kids are thinking things through and this process is vital if the structure is to be appropriate, viable and sustainable. Our policy is not to rush these processes and to allow children to arrive at the most comfortable solution. Our role is to provide appropriate inputs as and when required. We also believe in the need for providing for the positive discrimination of the marginalised as these children are disadvantaged, require a head start and some very special opportunities in order to ‘compete’ or participate with their privileged counterparts.

To enable an environment where children from different background can participate equally it first of all important that they have a base group and that they represent their constituency. The base group formed by those who have similar issues, concerns and aspirations gives each individual within the base group strength and the feeling of power. These base groups enable children or adults from unequal backgrounds to feel equal in a pan all organisations as they experience the strength of their constituency behind them.

Individuals sans the base groups participating in a pan all forums will continue to feel unequal and their sense of belonging and level of participation will largely depend on the largess of the stronger participants.

The representation of the base groups in the pan all forums should be based on positive discrimination. That is the weaker get more representatives and the stronger less. Example: The Makkala Panchayat has more seats reserved for girls than boys.

While working with children, one of the dilemmas is to decide which group of children need to be facilitated to participate on a priority basis. This decision will determine where our energies and resources as facilitators of children’s participation get focused first. Our experience shows that those children who are the most marginalised, and those who have the severest constraints to participate actually need it the most.

The first question therefore is how we identify the most marginalised group of children? Should it be on the basis of their economic, social, cultural, geographical or their political situation? Very often the choice is made based on any one of the above. But that may be misleading. For instance, in some situations, those who are politically marginalised may be economically stronger than several other groups in the community. Hence it may be more productive to see how the various aspects related to marginalisation over-lap and based on that, identify the most marginalised, less marginalised and so forth. It is also crucial that we look at issues related to gender, age and ability of children while determining the focus group because even within a marginalised group, there could be individual children who are further marginalised.

The result may appear like diagram below, where group 1 is the least marginalised and the levels of marginalisation increases with the numbers. So group 10 is the most marginalised.

We would therefore begin work with group 10. A time will come when these children, through their participation and agency, become upwardly mobile and acquire a status similar to that of children in group 9. At that point, if the children of group 9 are not equipped to participate effectively and use the opportunities that have been opened up for the participation of children, these spaces may close. So it is necessary that as our work progresses with group 10, we need to begin facilitating the participation of children in-group 9.

The nature, intensity and quality of children’s participation vary quite considerably between groups. The context or situation determines the nature and intensity of participation. Participation can manifest in diverse ways, from militancy and activism to negotiation and collective bargaining and even demonstrating through example. The situation determines what children select as their approach for the occasion. In fact an area worth studying are the ‘strategies children use to exhibit their agency’ and how children make these choices based on the context, issue, actors, players, stakeholders and the result they want. In Kundapura where the Gram Panchayats have been ‘listening to children’ for sometime and the Task Force meetings are held regularly, children do not need to demonstrate as much militancy as they used to. Where as in Bellary District, (a highly paternalistic and patriarchal society) where the Toofan Programme is relatively new children still need to adopt the direct activist approach. This does not mean that their achievements are any more or less or that their level of participation is higher or lower. It is just based on the specific context.

For example children seem to tailor make their strategies to ‘use’ the available structures. In Bangalore where there is no Makkala Panchayat and Task Force, children have devised innovative ways of getting the Municipal Corporation to accede to their demands, including mass rallies, demonstrations, using mainstream media and publishing enquiry committee reports exposing the exploitation of children working in urban occupations. Also the reservation for different groups of children (girls and boys) in the Makkala Panchayats varies according to their degree of marginalisation and population distribution.

There are several examples of how children have devised strategies based on the context and the stake holders/players or the persons/institutions they have to negotiate with. We have also found that they seem to most often adopt ‘win-win’ strategies.

The strategies that children most often adopt and/or design are ‘win-win’. They seem to instinctively know that these are more effective and sustainable. They know that they have to continue to live with adults, be it their parents, care givers, teachers, members of the community; and they know that direct confrontation, especially those that result in the adults ‘losing face’ would be detrimental to the relationship. They also care for these people and do not want to hurt them.

Nandrolli is a small hamlet in Keradi Panchayat of Udupi Taluk, a remote village located on the Western Ghats in Karnataka, India. It has 75-80 families and a population of 400 to 450. The village is typically agrarian, cut off from the advancement of modern technology. It lacks proper roads and transport, communication systems and other infrastructure.

Alcoholism was a way of life and a major issue in this Panchayat. Besides licensed vendors, liquor was sold in vegetable and grocery shops, by cycle and under the trees and other innovative ways. Though this had come up in various meetings at the Panchayat and Taluk level, nobody gave it any attention. The Makkala Panchayat, in the monthly Task Force meetings, pointed out several times that there were too many arrack (local liquor) shops in the village. The Panchayat ignored it as some of the shops selling liquor belonged to the Gram Panchayat who were receiving rental from them. During the Makkala Gram Sabha in the January 2002, the Makkala Panchayat raised it again. They identified it not only as an individual or family problem, but also as a community problem, affecting the entire village. Prior to coming together for the Gram Sabha meeting the children had collected several case studies of drunkenness and the problems caused as a result in the village.

Though the children presented their findings at the Gram Sabha, it did not move the adult Panchayat members, nor could they push it strongly as an agenda for action.

The members of the Makkala Panchayat raised the issue again in the following Task Force meeting. But it was brushed aside saying, "What is your problems? Some people drink; we cannot stop it; we cannot close down the shops because they have licence from the government; moreover, law does not prohibit anybody from stocking up to 10 packets of liquor." When the children were told to produce information about how many people drink and how much money is spent on it, they could not provide any realistic information. The adults closed the issue with an advise to children ‘but you should not drink’.

In the following Makkala Panchayat meeting the children decided that they required a better plan of action. They discussed the adults’ apathy and the reasons why they were ignoring this issue and decided that the only way to ‘open their eyes’ was to prove it in monetary terms.

The first step was to collect actual quantitative information. The children decided that as a part of their ‘clean the village’ campaign they would get the required information. They first cleaned up the entire area surrounding the arrack shops in Nandrolli. Once all the sachets were cleared, they continued their cleaning activity on a daily basis for the entire week. Each day they gathered all the empty sachets of arrack near the shops and counted them. They found that an average of 300 packets of arrack are consumed per day. Then they made their calculations. A packet of arrack costs Rs. 11.00. Three hundred packets cost Rs. 3300.00. This worked out to Rs.99, 000.00 per month and Rs.11, 88,000.00 per year. This was a huge amount for only a small hamlet with a total population of about 400 to 450 people.

From their previous experience the children knew that most members of the Gram Panchayat were not supportive and so decided to keep this information secret until the right moment

Again at the Independence Day celebrations conducted at the main school in the Panchayat on 15^th August the Children invited the Executive Director of CWC to the celebrations. During this programme the children again presented all the information they collected and explained the process of information collection. The Taluk Panchayat members, the headmaster, teachers, other invitees and the entire village were shocked by the information shared by children. They could not imagine the huge revenue loss for the village. It was inconceivable. The entire gathering also felt ashamed; that they had been informed by children; they, the adults had not recognised this as an issue and none of them, including those holding senior positions had taken any action in this regard. There was a unanimous public response demanding that the concerned authorities take the matter seriously and take stringent and immediate action.

As a first step it was decided to stop the sale of alcohol through all sources other than licensed stores. It was decided that the Panchayat will issue notices immediately to ban the sale of liquor non licensed stores and the sale has stopped in vegetable and grocery stores, from the cycle, under the trees, etc.

However, this is a political issue and also a sensitive one. Most of the alcohol shops are owned by the ‘Shettys’, an upper caste. This being the case, the Panchayat President wants a memorandum to be submitted in order to close the licensed shops as well.

Mr. Nagappa, member of the Taluk Panchayat, is leading a people’s movement in the Panchayat against alcoholism. He feels a strong memorandum from the Makkala Panchayat will be able to influence the Taluk and District authorities to pass the necessary order against all the alcohol shops in the village as an appeal from the Children’s Panchayat has no political colouring. Moreover, it was the children who raised the issue in the first place and he feels that unless the adults’ deal with this issue it is shameful and ‘we will be doing wrong by our children’. He is organising a huge people’s rally campaigning against alcoholism. By the end of December he is confident of declaring the entire Panchayat ‘ALCOHOL-FREE’.

Children’s participation is no different from that of adults. Children may represent themselves as individuals or be represented by their organisations or they may even represent their organisation. When they represent themselves, they tend to focus on issues that concern them personally. As members of an organisation they tend to voice larger/common concerns that in turn become the concerns of the organisation.

When children participate as representatives of their organisations they bring with them the mandate of their entire organisation. Their responsibilities increase, as they have to ensure the optimum use of opportunities to raise the issues of the members. This also implies a very high level of accountability and we have seen children’s organisations that have several checks and balances in place to ensure that this accountability is respected and maintained.

It is important to point out that issues related to ‘representation’ should also be considered important for the participation of adults. How representative are we? How participatory are the processes we are part of? Should we not work towards ensuring these for adults as well?

Children may participate in formal or informal consultations. In both these scenarios, they may or may not be listened to and their inputs may or may not be taken on board. It is possible that children are a part of formal consultative structures – such as advisory boards – in which case there is a better chance of their opinions and concerns forming a part of the decision. Children may also be a part of joint decision making structures where children are an integral part of the decision making process. In this set up children have optimum impact.

Their contribution becomes most potent when they are using formal structures and spaces as representatives of their organisations and it is in this form and level of participation that they can most significantly contribute to policy level decision making processes.

Children’s organisations and movements have multiple and unique histories. Their birth, evolution and maturity may take on different paths based on the context in which children function, on the issues they wish to address, on their ideological frame and vision.

The mechanisms for empowerment and the structures for participation should be created at all levels of decision-making from home to local governance. Only then will education become relevant to the lives of marginalised children and enable them to use this newfound knowledge to transform their lives and their schools. Crucial to this process are the need for structures and forums where children can participate in an organised and meaningful way. These structure need to apply to all the arenas of a child.

Children belonging to organisations, unions and movements in several parts of the world have begun to quite definitively define their own paradigm of development and reshape the world closer to their vision. They have made significant contributions to policies and programmes resulting in interventions that are (probably for the first time) appropriate and sustainable. They have questioned our perspectives and forced us to change.

The right of children to organise and participate in decisions regarding themselves does not mean that they have all the answers, nor does it mean that we, as adults, are absolved of our responsibilities towards our children. It is only giving them the first step towards being able to defend themselves and reshape their future. We must also be prepared for the fact that children will say things we do not necessarily agree with, they will ask embarrassing questions for which we do not have ready answers and they will disagree on the stands they take based on the differing realities they face. But we must be willing to accept this. The concerns of working children need to be put on the agenda and discussed. Their questions must be answered and only if we accept this challenge will we be any closer to finding solutions that work.

There should be no discrimination between caste and the rich and poor. If a boy and a girl speak to each other and are friendly, it should not be misinterpreted.

Saraswathi, a member of Bhima Sangha, is 17 years old and has dropped out of school in the eigth standard. She works as a helper in an anganwadi and also has to do several household chores everyday. However, she still made time to take active part in conducting the survey.

While Saraswathi with her friends was surveying a household, she learnt that an elderly woman of the household was not receiving widow pension from the state, although she was eligible to get it. While surveying other households she discovered that there were a few other widows as well in the same fate. As they were engaged in the survey, they compiled a list of eligible people who were not receiving widow and/or old age pension. The very next day the researchers met the President of their Panchayat and informed him of the oversight and sought urgent action. With the assistance of the president the researchers obtained the appropriate application forms and filled the details in for the applicants who were mostly illiterate. The researchers then obtained signatures or thumb prints from the applicants and submitted them to the Panchayat officials and pressurised the latter to contact the concerned authorities. To their surprise the pensioners began to get their pension within a month.

I was there on one of my regular visits and was invited to attend a meeting of Bhima Sangha, an organisation for and by working children. There was a tiny boy there, his name Dinesh. He looked six years old but turned out to be eight. To me he seemed too young to attend such a meeting and I made a note to ask our field activists about this later, when Dinesh began to speak. "We want our own forest (Namma Kadu)", he said, "And in that forest we the children of Bhima Sangha will grow bamboo and cane for our parents to make baskets with. We will grow the grass needed for making mats and trees for fuel. We will also grow trees that will attract birds. We will grow the trees necessary for bees to make honey and make a pond for fish and lotuses. The earth dug out to make the pond will be used for building houses and making pots. We will also plant edible and medicinal herbs.

"We will plant this forest ourselves and when this forest has grown we will protect it and use it only for our needs. No trees will be cut, only branches, because a tree takes a long time to grow. After that we will let loose animals that our parents told us used to be in the forests in this area, but only after the trees have grown, or else animals like rabbits will eat the plants before they become trees."

The young persons we work with have experienced the strength of their organisations and forums such as the Bhima Sangha, Makkala Panchayats and Namma Sabha. For these children participation is not just an opportunity to take part in meetings, to be consulted occasionally, or to sing a song at an inaugural function. For them participation is a means to advocate for their own cause and transform their situations. For them participation is a political intervention irrespective of the arena in which they participate. For them, participation is protagonism in the true sense of the word.

They are struggling to the fight injustice they face and are working to build a better world. They are fighting the same battles as those fought by the working class and women’s movements. They face the same questions regarding their ability, their intentions and their integrity. They are struggling for their right of entry into political space. They are making tremendous sacrifices because this struggle means a lot to them.

It is this experience with children, that has defined our view of children’s participation and we have developed mechanisms/structures, methodologies and tools to strengthen these processes.

We believe that children must be given the right to intervene in their environment and change elements that do not uphold their rights as children.

Vanaja is a mischievous little tomboy. Vanaja was the first girl who graduated from our Appropriate Construction Technology programme. She comes from a small village called Kalavara on the foothills of the Western Ghats in India. She heads a construction group and now lives in Kanyana Village on her own. She was a member of Bhima Sangha and is now a member of Namma Sabha.

When Vanaja was twelve years old, her father was incapacitated and her mother was fighting a losing battle to feed the family. Vanaja was desperate to learn a skill and to join the CWC's vocational training programme. The course she chose was Appropriate Construction Technology, a male dominated profession. Vanaja was aware of the difficulties her choice would bring but she stood her ground. She is now a full member of a construction group.

Prema is a very poised young girl. She lives in a tiny village called Uppunda that nestles between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats in South India. It is a fishing village. Prema and her family belong to a low cast in the social hierarchy. The boys in her family are taught how to fish and the girls and women run the home and do all the menial chores. A primary occupation is the collection of firewood from the forests on the slopes of the foothills. This means waking up at 2 am, walking 10 to 11 kilometres and returning with a head load of firewood by afternoon.

Children’s participation: Participation is a natural instinct. From the moment they are born, children begin to participate. They participate in order to communicate and to establish links with their environment. They participate in order to gain an identity and a membership in the community. They find meaning in their lives through their participation. Gradually, through their participation, they intervene in their external environments.

Children’s protagonism: The spiral of Children’s Protagonism illustrates the reasons for children’s protagonism and was arrived at based on the history and evolution of the working children’s movements from around the world.

For children who are in difficult circumstances, marginalised and oppressed, their first and foremost need is that of survival, obtaining basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter and the livelihood to get these.

Once basic needs are met the need to end discrimination would become important. For example, working children would demand equal pay for equal work, etc.

Once the above is accomplished the next step would be to demand and access rights that are due to them as children. For example, working children would demand that they work fewer hours than adults do and have access to quality education in their free time that is compatible to the formal system and appropriate to their needs.

The solving of causes or the redefining of structures that oppress and marginalise children would be their next area of concern. For example, eradicating poverty, strengthening the services available to children and increasing the employment opportunities for the adults in their communities. This would also include the participation of children in governance.

And finally children would like to intervene in reshaping society closer to their vision of the world they would like to live in. This would demand that adults enter into a democratic partnership with them.

Each child is a complex individual with a unique social, cultural, political, social, environmental and spiritual identity. This identity is critical to the child and yet a dynamic one, continuously transforming through interactions with the external world as well as through internal reflections.

Children constantly interact with other children and adults in a wide range of arenas. Starting with their respective families and going up to the international forums, children can and sometimes do interact and influence processes.

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Children who seek to participate encounter many obstacles, within their own homes and outside. They have to constantly negotiate in order to make time and space for themselves.

We should also remember that when a child participates in a platform or forum that is visible to us adults, such as conferences, that child has probably negotiated at several levels, home, work, school, community, peers, etc. in order to be there. This would mean participation in all these arenas. Our responsibility as adult facilitators is to enable and equip children to handle this.

Then we need to create the structures for participation so that children may use this to reduce the pressures on them and release them from exploitation.

It is only through such participation that the state can be made accountable. This participation in political space by children will also enable other marginalised groups such as women; tribal communities etc. to change their immediate situations, and to strengthen and redefine our democracy.

CWC works with children who work and we cover about 20,000 children in 5 districts in Karnataka. We are planning to upscale to 50 Panchayats and 6 urban centres in the next five years. Our project is called Makkala Toofan and is basically a three to five year intervention in a given Panchayat or urban centre.

The Ladder of Participation by Roger Hart is often used to represent levels of children’s participation. However what it depicts are not levels of children’s participation but the varying roles adults play in relation to children’s participation. It denotes the control and influence adults have over the process of children’s participation. It also indicates adult responses to children’s participation.

The term ‘Ladder’ is a misnomer as it implies a sequence, where as in reality one level may not necessarily lead to the next level; for instance, manipulation of children may not lead to children being used as decoration as a natural next step. If we take it that Roger Hart depicts a wide spectrum of scenarios of adult roles viz a viz children’s participation that range from the negative to the positive, we suggest a modified version of the same as follows:

1. Active resistance: There are adults who actively resist children’s participation. These adults belong to several categories. Some of them feel that children should not be burdened with participation. Some believe that children do not have the capacity to participate and hence cannot make informed choices. Some hold the view that children are very easy to manipulate and hence their participation may be used only to further adult agendas. Some adults in this category take very strong positions against children’s participation and actually mobilise support and lobby against it. They do so because they are very aware of the power of children’s participation and hence do not want to forfeit their power.

2. Hindrance: There are adults who hinder children’s participation. Some of them may be against children’s participation and they may come in the way of children’s participation either overtly or covertly. They block opportunities for children and discourage children from participating. There are others in this category that may voice their support to children’s participation, but the manner in which they interact with children may actually hinder children’s participation. They may intentionally or unintentionally undermine the ability of children and may end up making children feel inadequate and reluctant to participate.

3. Manipulation: There are adults who manipulate children. Some adults in this scenario use children to further their own agendas. They may coach children to voice what they want or cleverly interpret what children say/do to suit their own interests. Sometimes this manipulation is very obvious, yet often it may be quite subtle – and may be carried out in ways children find very difficult to notice, let alone counter.

There are other adults who may manipulate children in order to ‘get the best performance’ out of them – and according to the adults, this may be done in the best interest of the child. Sometimes manipulation takes on emotional overtones as children often have emotional ties with the adults they interact with closely.

Manipulation is a very subtle and sensitive area. This critique has been often used to discredit children’s participation. Even the best child facilitators could end up manipulating children unintentionally and unconsciously. The only way to guard against this is to be constantly vigilant.

4. Decoration: There are adults who treat children more or less like decorative objects, where they are expected to basically add colour to the proceedings. Children are called to present bouquets or sing songs – and not much is made of their presence.

5. Tokenism: There are adults who bring in children to take mileage from their presence and pretend that children have been given opportunities to participate. The adults may not manipulate children to speak on their behalf, yet they do ‘use’ the presence of children to be counted as ‘advocates of children’s rights’ and to be politically correct.

6. Tolerance: There are adults who bear with the notion of children’s participation as some one higher up (such as a donor agency) thinks it is important. In some cases, children themselves may have demanded to be listened to. Adults then go through some consultative exercises with children but do not give any value or credit to the process or the outcome.

7. Indulgence: There are adults who find children’s participation ‘cute’ and ‘interesting’ and are willing to provide limited spaces for children to voice their opinions. They keep prompting children to speak up and try to keep the environment friendly. They may listen to the opinions expressed by children with interest, but may not follow them up with seriousness. These are mostly one time events and very little comes out of such ‘participation’.

8. Children assigned but informed: There are adults who work with children with some seriousness. The adults in this category decide on what needs to be done, but keep children well informed. They encourage children to be actively involved in the activities. They will guide children to implement the task, but do not expect children to input into the larger design of the process.

9. Children consulted and informed: Some adults believe in consulting children and keeping them involved. The adults take the lead role but inform the children about the situation and seek their opinion. They try to give children a sense of ownership over some aspects of the process, but under their supervision. The adults are still in control over the process, but they keep it flexible to incorporate the suggestions and concerns of the children.

10. Adult initiated, shared decisions with children: There are adults who initiate a process or a programme, but are clearly willing to share the decision making space with the children. They see it as a collaborative interaction. Even though initiated by them, they make it a joint effort. Here too children and adults may take on different roles, yet those roles are defined by mutual consent.

11. Children – initiated, shared decisions with adults: There are children and their organisations that call the first shot, and invite adults to collaborate with them. Children ensure that adults are jointly involved in deciding what needs to be done and share the ownership of the process and the outcome. Within the collaboration, children and adults may take on different roles, yet those roles are defined by mutual consent.

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12. Children initiated and directed: There are children and their organisations that are in total control and they may or may not involve the adults. If they do decide to involve the adults, they will work out the framework in which the adults are to participate. Children will continue to keep the process under their control and will have the total ownership of the process and the outcome.

13. Jointly initiated and directed by children and adults: There are adults and children who have developed a partnership and they jointly initiate and direct the processes. They have joint ownership of the idea, the process and the outcome. They may play different roles, based on mutual consent. This relationship is possible only when both the adults and children are empowered and are able to pool their respective strengths to achieve a common objective, in partnership with each other.

These roles neither are watertight compartments nor are they purely black or white scenarios. Thirteen of them have been spelt out, yet there is a wide range of shades between them. We have seen adults play all these roles sometimes intentionally or unintentionally. It is possible that the same group of adults play one or several of these roles with the same group of children or different groups of children at different times.

But in situations where children have control over their own spaces and participation, they are in a position to negotiate with adults from a point of strength. They can then actively determine the roles each of them take on in a given situation. It is this, which actually determines the level of children’s participation.

There are some who argue that the responsibility or duties of adults decrease with children’s participation. This however is not true. There is actually a relationship of direct proportion between children’s participation and adult responsibility. An example we often use is that of a pet dog. Keeping the dog shut in a kennel, putting the dog on a leash and allowing the dog to roam free implies different degrees of responsibility on the part of the caregiver. Keeping a dog in a kennel requires very little from the care giver, where as allowing the dog to roam free requires the care giver to enable the dog to cross a street, protect itself and find its way home, provide a safe environment, among other things. In all three cases the caregiver is providing for and protecting the pet, but in the third case there is freedom and participation. When these scenarios are translated for children, caregivers often argue that restrictions imposed, especially with respect to girls, are for their protection.

Children’s right to participation is a new concept to both adults and children. This is a difficult concept to understand and more difficult to practice, as both adults and children are not normally used to this. The existing relationship we (adults) have with children normally does not allow for their active and equal participation.

At present, adults are in total control. We reserve the right to advocate, intervene and decide on behalf of children. We also have socialised children to ‘listen to’ adults. This absolute control also gives us the possibility to abuse children. Children should have the right and the ability to resist this. It is only then that adults will be accountable for their actions.

So first of all we need to examine the nature of the relationship that we now have with children.
 

If we recognise children’s right to participation the nature of our relationship with children will have to dramatically change. It will have to change in many ways. First it will have to change from one of either independence or dependence to one of interdependence. Secondly it will have to be a participatory relationship that is bottom up and not hierarchical or top down.

We also need to ensure that we do not perpetuate existing hegemonic structures and practices. This relationship will have to be based on democratic principles and processes.

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If we recognise children’s right to participation the nature of our relationship with children will have to dramatically change. It will have to change in many ways. First it will have to change from one of either independence or dependence to one of interdependence. Secondly it will have to be a participatory relationship that is bottom up and not hierarchical or top down.