Children perform- Don't miss!!

This year we would be celebrating the 12 th Bol Jamoore – the Festival of Street Theatre in Kolkata on 15th and 16th of December 2010 . The festival is organized by “Theatre Forum for Child Rights” (TFCR), a forum supported by CRY-Youth wing. The festival aims to generate awareness on various social issues and reach out to public as audience. The entire event facilitates a thinking process in the minds of our children and youth. It brings out the different perspectives of children and youth on today’s situation of deprivation faced by millions of children in India ranging from child labor to extreme poverty, from poor quality education to child trafficking. The platform provides an excellent opportunity for our children and youth to come and perform in front of a large audience to spread the awareness on child rights.

We are looking forward to your participation. Necessary details are as follows:

Dec 15 (Wednesday): Academy of Fine Arts (Open Air), 4- 7 PM

Dec 16 (Thursady): Madhusudan Mancha (Muktangan), 4-7 PM

Anupama
CRY Kolkata

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