Hope is a good thing, may be best of things and no good thing ever dies...
Our Fellows were very much disturbed when they got to know that almost 16 children from Chopda Anandghar are going to migrate with their parents. They brainstormed on various ideas of how we can stop this and what we should do if migration still happen.
From the next day they started having dialogue with parents to understand why they are migrating and if there is any possibility of them not going. They were constantly going to their houses to convince them to not go. Most of the people have taken advances from their Mukadam and have spent it to fulfill their daily needs and now they had no money to return. The parents understands that the migration is going to hamper the future of their children but had no answer of what they should do. They were helpless and so were we.
It took Shubham and Kalusing a week before they got the first success. The grand-mother of Ritik and Vir announced to other family members during dinner that they are not going to migrate and she is willing to face all circumstances of the decision. Her determination gave power to the other family members and in next 3 days they arranged Rs. 10000/-, the advance they had taken from the Mukadam. Ritik and Vir's father went to Mukadam, returned the advance and told him that they are not going to come.
But this is not the end. The decision of Ritik & Virs family worked as a motivation for others as well.
I am happy, thrilled, excited, overjoyed to share, to announce that this year we have successfully stopped migration of 8 children and their families. This is not a small victory.
8 children not going to the work with their parents mean 8 children saved from child-labour. This also means 8 children saved from facing abuse. This also means 8 children not dropping out of the school. This also means a ray of hope for better future for 8 families.
This also means that we were not able to stop 8 children going out with their parents. But we have not lost hopes. We had distributed worksheets, stationery and relevant study material to the children along with the numbers of Shubhal & Kalusing to stay in touch..
At Vardhishnu we believe that Every Child Matters. It is one child at a time for us. It is because of the determination, dedication and passion of our Fellows, team members which makes this possible. We face lots of adversities when we work, be it not having enough funds, not having a closed space for running Anandghar, CSRs, funding agencies not willing to break their comfort zones of staying in metros. But we have people who are highly qualified, yet they have decided to be with children in an hostile environment, we have passion, we have an unending zeal of making a change in this world. To create a better, safer, happier world for every child. Because EVERY CHILD MATTERS...EVERY CHILD COUNTS...
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