Right to a Family

Being a volunteer of the news track team, the piece of news in the following lines caught my interest stemming from the belief that every child deserves a happy childhood and caring family. It is time that process of adoption becomes transparent, easy, and protects the rights of the child!

Read on…

The Ministry of Women and Child Development has developed an online system where applicants can register and select a child for adoption. The Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System(CARINGS), designed by the National Informatics Centre, is to serve as the medium for sharing information about children up for adoption and their photographs. The process will first be implemented for domestic users before its extension to the international users.

Benefits:
• Simpler process which obviates paperwork.
• Interested parents will not have to wait for an inordinate amount of time (Currently it takes a minimum of 6 months to adopt a child).

This move emphasises on the concern for the welfare of the under –eighteens who have not been fortunate to be associated with their biological parents, one of their basic rights.

Reference: The Indian Express, 7th October, 2010

Link: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/adoption-to-become-easier-ministry-to-put-i/693820/


Sushmita Barua
CRY Volunteer

Volunteers being Changemakers

Read this article in Hindu one of the premiere national dailies to find out more about how CRY volunteers like YOU are being changemakers in different parts of the country. some of you might just find your names in print ... :)


http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-nxg/article878961.ece

Not so glad that you were born

This is a story
Not of any girl next door.
She wanted to read
But could study no more.

Alas, poor was her family
Finances were all sore
Dad was idle sans a job
And mom did other houses' chore

Why to teach a girl at all
We don't feel no need for that
All you should is help mom in work
On her face, dad told her flat

Mom wanted her girl to learn
Child to be someone in life
Respect, name, fame to earn
And not just spend her days in strife

But all she had was thorns in store
School was a distant dream to seek
Married she was, a girl she bore
Whose future was no less bleak

And thus the story starts afresh
Not of any girl next door.
She wanted so much to read
But, as they say, she could study no more.

Chirag Jain (IIM-Calcutta)

Pujas- A Happy Time?

Hope all of you enjoyed the Durga Pujas as much as I did...

The Pujas mean different things to different people. While some of us love the pandal hopping and the constant gorging on junk food, others are fond of the family reunions it brings along. While some associate it with sindoor khela on a calm dashami morning, others are reminded of the faint smell of dhoop and shiuli flowers in the air.

To each one of us, however, it means a period of joy and happiness. It is sad then, to think of the thousands of children to whom it means a short respite from a never ending blur of toil and hard work, long hours and empty stomachs. These children are the ones who slog away in the by lanes of Kumartuli all through the year, crafting the idols and presenting them in all their finery, making it a Pujas we'll remember forever. What is worse is that, amidst all the festivity, few of us think of these unfortunate children, stripped of their childhood and innocence.
I urge all of you to spare a few minutes and think of all these children and thank them for the wonderful festival they make it.

The two thought-provoking pictures below capture the contrasting lives of children before and during the Pujas, on two different sides of the same line...

Photo courtesy: telegraphindia.com; unboundether.blogspot.com

Sonam Chamaria
CRY Volunteer

What are you waiting for??

Since 2006, every year, a group of students of Indian Institute of Management- Calcutta (members of INCA) works on social projects in discussion with Volunteer Action team at CRY Kolkata. This year too, around their campus event Mandi, they pushed their boundaries!

In the array of things that were done, a blog competition, ‘The other side of life… Stand up for Child Rights’ was launched on September 23rd, 2010 to know views and experiences on child rights and loop in the entire student community..! Amidst many entries that were received, three very soulful entries were adjudged as the top three, which were written by Chandrasekhar Venugopal, Sachit Handa, and Vaibhav Tiwari! These were put up on the wall of a CRY stall at Mandi.

The following section has these three pieces. Am sure it will find resonance in your heart and will kindle urge and zeal in every one of us to not just feel bad about the situation of children in India but do something about it!

Please do read and share your thoughts as comments or a fresh piece in this blog…

Anupama
CRY, Kolkata