For adults, the most important starting point is to view children as holders of rights. This requires a paradigm shift and it challenges us to redefine our relationship with children. It is also important for us to equip ourselves with a sound body of knowledge regarding personhood of children and their developmental milestones. These form the basis on which facilitation skills may be acquired to enable children to attain their full potential as protagonists. We need to develop indicators that will give us an honest understanding of the processes we are facilitating so that we are able to create spaces where both adults and children can become empowered.

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• The enjoyment of rights probably decreases from birth to middle age and then begins to increase again.

RIGHTS                RESPONSIBILITIES    

The rights and responsibilities of adults and children are not always equally balanced. At no point in ones life are rights and responsibilities equal. Adding a right does not necessarily mean adding on a corresponding responsibility. A baby has all her rights, but practically no responsibilities. Similarly, senior citizens or mentally challenged individuals. Rights and responsibilities are determined by age and ability of the individual.

The diagram below attempts to show how rights and responsibilities are in practice – the extent of realisation – and not as it is stated in theory.

I am Kaliyamma. I am 23 years old. The members of Namma Sabha have selected me as a Village Level Activist. I now work in Belve Panchayat.

I was a member of Bhima Sangha for 6 years. I helped to strengthen and build the Bhima Sangha in Belve.

I studied up to 9^th standard. That was the time I had my first menstrual period. My family asked me to take a month off from school because of that. The teacher detained me in the class. That is why I stopped my schooling. Next I started rolling beedis.

But that work gave me dizziness and backache. So I joined a cashew factory as a worker. I became a member of Bhima Sangha at that time. In 1996 I attended a very large Mela of Bhima Sangha in Bangalore where working children from different parts of the country. That was the first time I traveled such a large distance with other children. My family had not been keen that I participate, but Prabhakar who was the field activist of CWC had convinced my parents to let me travel to Bangalore.

When I returned from Bangalore I was determined to make the Bhima Sangha in Belve strong. We were only 5 members at that time, I could immediately make it a 20 member chapter. I also helped other children in other parts of Belve Panchayat to form their own Bhima Sanghas.

Next we learnt about how to conduct surveys and carried out a survey in Belve. We identified 280 working children. We also learnt that 80 children had migrated from our Village for work in just the previous year. We have since then been using information well. We use it to take up issues with our local governments.

We have now started 3 Extension Anganwadi’s in Belve with the help of the Task Force. I would like to share with you the story of how we managed to build an Extension School in our Panchayat.

We used to meet once a week as Bhima Sangha. During those meetings we strongly felt that we needed to meet every day and get informed about many issues. But there was no place for us to meet. We requested the Panchayat to make a small building available to us. The Panchayat said that they did not have any land, but if we could find some land, they could give us a small grant to construct the building. We decided to use a small part of the land owned by the Forest Department, put up a thatched roof and started to meet there. Until the monsoons, we were able to use the shed. When the rains started, the roof fell. The Forest Department did not let us put up the shed again – they threatened us. At that time, Sri. Dyavappanayaka of our village offered some land for us to build our Extension School.

We called a meeting of the members of the Panchayat and the elders in the community. We told them that we now had land. We requested them to support us for the building. This request was placed before the Panchayat. They said that they could pay us Rs. 15,000. But the elders who prepared the estimate informed us that Rs. 15,000 was not enough to build.

We were determined to have our school. We convinced Sri Kullu Nayaka, a mason to work for us free of cost. The members of Bhima Sangha and our parents decided to work in the evenings (up to mid-night) as our contribution. We joined hands with Sri. Kullu Nayaka and built the foundations and the walls. When we had to build the roof, we found only one carpenter, but no assistance. Susheela, a member of Bhima Sangha, for the first time offered to climb up and assist the carpenter to build the roof. Finally, in spite of all this, we were a little short of money. We had a Rs. 500 saving. We contributed that to the building. And finally our building was ready.

I remember how we used to bring oil lamps from our own houses to take to the school and to work in it.

When I had left school, my family members and the others in the village used to think of me as good for nothing. Now because of the Bhima Sangha, I have got a lot of recognition. A few years ago people used to make negative remarks about my involvement in the work of Bhima Sangha. I then started sharing about what I was doing in Bhima Sangha in great detail in my family. I brought my father to Namma Bhoomi. I would take my father to meetings under that pretext that I was scared to go alone. He saw how I participated and how other children respected me. He gradually began to let me participate. By the time we began working on the school building he had started supporting me a lot in our work.

Now I have a lot of confidence. I feel that I talk to anyone. I am confident about my ability to take up responsibilities. I have been able to participate in many places and gain experiences. Now I have begun to write stories, plays and poems for children.

(By Kaliyamma, 2002)

Conversly, mere process oriented initiatives have no meaning unless they impact on structures and exhibit agency.

The Bhima Sangha and the Namma Sabha (and now the Child Rights Organisation) were formed by the children or youth involved, and not by us, because they felt a need. They also demanded a children’s government that was later called the Makkala Panchayat. They designed its structure, decided on their leadership style and the purpose of these organisations. We, along with the children integrated these into a strategy. The children wanted the Makkala Panchayat to have a formal status with the local government and we then devised a link mechanism to formally integrate the Makkala Panchayat with the Gram Panchayat, that is the Task Force. This link also enables all these parallel structures to be mainstreamed and the whole model to be upscaled to a State or National level.

The question is not one of replication but of translating ‘principles’ and picking up isolated elements from an integrated strategy cannot do this. Example: the concept of the Makkala Mitra or Children’s Friend (please refer to your ‘Visit/Trip Report). Who will elect the Makkala Mitra? Whom will they be accountable to? How will they link with government services and infrastructure if you do not have all the other elements in some form or the other?

Questioning the relevance of the Toofan Strategy for the region is not substantiated. In fact our experience has proved otherwise. However, it would be interesting to examine together other strategies/models that are comprehensive, up scalable and able to impact and use existing formal structures.

For instance, the statergies that Bhima Sangha have developed in the urban context (Bangalore City) are in response to the formal structures, (which are very different from the rural Panchayat Raj structures) the urban realities, their concerns and priorities. Violence, abuse, harrassment by police, shelter and such other basic necessities are high on the list of Bhima Sangha - Bangalore. Similarly, the youth organisation, Namma Sabha in Bangalore has a very different structure, concerns and membership from their rural counterpart, though both groups of youth felt the need for Namma Sabha. The concerns of rural youth are to protect and expand job opportunities, preventing migration for harmful employment in urban areas and ensure the viability of certain traditional occupations. The urban youth feel the need to aquire the skills to be able to access the existing job market and to understand the art of collective bargaining power and negotiating with their employers.

To participate is a natural instinct. It is also natural to protect one’s space and sometimes even prevent others from sharing it.

Children are attempting to participate all the time. There are many groups of children especially working children’s unions and movements that have demanded and occupied space to participate, including political space.

We the adults have a choice. To be the facilitators and partners in this struggle of our children or to continue to hinder it. If we chose to be the former, the ‘learning’ that we have to undergo is rigorous and complex. The territory is largely uncharted and we learn more through our mistakes than our successes. We have to develop sound theory and this can be done only by examining in-depth the experience and knowledge base that already exists.

This document is a small contribution to this process.