What We Do and How :
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Whatever program CHETNA conducts is in accordance
to a Core Principle:
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"We ensure children’s participation.
The children with whom we work have designed programs and activities of CHETNA based
on their needs & perceptions. This is what makes CHETNA unique.
With us, children are the protagonists, and we are the catalysts."
This maxim is put into practice in a way peculiar to CHETNA in Badhte Kadam,
a Federation of Street and Working Children.
Our work structure follows a distinctively effective though simple three-fold scheme:
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Direct Action: |
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In immediate cooperation between
NGO and target group, this part of our work ensures street children are not left
alone with their issues but experience concrete solidarity, can fulfill their own
potential, and develop a perspective in life.
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- Contact Points: Street Coordinators provide Non-Formal Education
in Hindi, English, Math, and General Knowledge classes right where the children
live and work.
- Recreation: Sports, art classes, competitions,
and Fun Trips to interesting and educational places are organized.
- NIOS: CHETNA is affiliated with the National
Institute of Open School (NIOS). After enrollment, we assist street and working
children during their educational careers in a center run for this purpose.
- Workshops: regular life skills workshops
acquaint children with knowledge about institutions and facilities important in
everyday survival. In residential leadership workshops, kids find out all about
how to actively involve themselves and their peers in the process of social change.
- Support Groups: are formed and representatives
prepared and elected who facilitate between the organization and the kids ([link]
see Children’s Federation).
- Reunion of Families: whenever possible and needed, we cooperate
with shelters and authorities to either replace runaways in their families or give
them a new home.
- Rescuing of Working Children: CHETNA helps end illegal and / or
exploitative labor relations if the children are ready to take this step.
- Birth Registration: as birth certificates are necessary to get
children admitted to school and similar purposes, we assist illiterate parents and
those unaware of the significance of a registration in obtaining one for their child.
- Health Camps: in a community-focused effort, CHETNA along with
partner professionals provides medical services to whoever approaches the Contact
Points at certain days.
- Drug Therapy & Counseling: in general, we do our best to support
children in giving up any habits of substance abuse. At Nizamudin, a clinical psychologist
and CHETNA-team member has taken up a therapy project to this end.
- Vocational Training: offered to give older minors a perspective
of self-sufficiency.
- Activity Center in Gautam Nagar, Delhi: a spacious room allows
the Children’s Federation to hold larger-scale meetings; also,
trainings and workshops are conducted there.
- Drop-in Center in Agra: up to twenty kids at a time who would otherwise
be homeless can find refuge, food, and a supportive community in this home.
- Badhte Kadam: In a unique Federation of Street and Working Children,
the kids themselves organize to have their concerns taken into consideration and
their grievances redressed. See [link, URL (to be added later)]
- Other Activities: furthermore, CHETNA organizes a yearly Lost &
Found Camp at Kalkaji Temple during the festive season, Exposure Visits to police
stations and health care facilities for street children, and more.
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Sensitizing the Stakeholders: |
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This aspect of our work is directed towards
those who make or break the supportive environment needed for a child to develop
and participate freely: parents, communities and the local public from shopkeepers
to employers, the media, personnel of administrative bodies, staffs of medical facilities,
and the police.
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- ‘How to Become Child-Friendly Police’: in day-long trainings,
the word of children’s rights is spread amongst the police force, giving them the
consciousness and methodology required to be an ally, not a menace to street kids.
They are conducted in all areas of our work and on demand.
- Cooperation with Authorities: CHETNA is the official member of
Special Juvenile Police Units in five districts of Delhi, ensuring the rights of
children in conflict with the law.
- Training of Trainers: residential workshops enhance the knowledge
of NGO heads and medium level staff on children’s rights, their general situation
and the methodology to deal with it. Interfaces: contact between politicians, members
of administrative bodies, representatives of the media and of corporate enterprises
is established. During many of these meetings, children form one more very important
party.
- Joining Hands with Schools: prejudice against both street and school
kids is counteracted, the quality of education improved. An urge is created among
street children to get enrolled and in school-going children to carry forth the
message of child rights, i.e. to their parents who might just be the employer of
a minor household aid.
- Parents’ Meetings: inform about the progress of individual students
and spread the knowledge of the plight of child labor and possible alternatives.
- Students’ Wing: with the help of volunteers, CHETNA in this program
reaches out to students of Pant Nagar University, sensitizing these young citizens
with regard to children’s issues.
- Opportunity for Volunteers: Indians and foreign nationals of all
ages and positions can find a medium- or long-term place at CHETNA so they can contribute
to putting our programs into practice and give new input.
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Advocacy: |
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Although the first two levels show the most easily
graspable and immediate results, they can hardly have lasting effects without a
change for the better in policy-making and the social climate.
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- Bal Adhika Abhiyan: This nation-wide network of NGOs and individual
activists strives to put the issue of children’s rights on the political agenda,
sharing practices that proved effective in their work and information on current
events and developments.
- PR work: plays, presentations, and shows are organized to raise
awareness of children’s issues; booklets and brochures are [link:] published on
a regular basis.
- Establishment of Statuary Bodies:
Childline, CWCs, State Child
Rights Protection Commissions, etc.
- Amendment and Reform: CHETNA and partner NGOs actively follow the
process of reforms of acts and policies, commenting openly and critically where
necessary and reinforcing positive tendencies.
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CHETNA in Media |
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Child situation in our Society |
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