Child Friendly Movement by Basu Rai

I would like to tell you about a Movement which I started recently in India called “Child Friendly Movement”. The Movement aims to fight and sensitize people against all forms of exploitation and violence on children through strong street theatre. But before I provide more details about the Movement, I need to give readers a brief background about my past history.

When I was orphaned at four years of age, I was forced to beg on the streets of Kathmandu, Nepal in order to survive. I became a street gangster, pick pocketer, knife wielder, rag picker, carpet factory worker, pot-boy in a restaurant and a domestic servant many times I was beaten near to death, as a child I had to see inhuman and horrible life. In 1997 I was rescued by an NGO in Kathmandu and in 1998, when I was 9 years old, I was selected as a Child Leader for participating in the Global March Against Child Labour. In this event, I fought and walked jointly step by step across 20 countries with Mr Kailash Satyarthi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner of 2014 and many others, to demand an international law for children.

I firmly believe through my experiences as a survivor that good education is the key to solve most of the world’s problems. I am now an activist in the fight against human trafficking and slavery and have written my own autobiography which is entitled “From the Streets of Kathmandu” The book is sponsored by renown philanthropist Luis Mirand and forward is written by Nobel laureate of 2014 Mr. Kailash Satyarthi. I am determined to dedicate my life to helping children and families avoid the clutches of the human traffickers and slave masters. To further this cause, I formed the Child Friendly Movement (CFM), which was registered in May 2015, to create an impact and motivate people to do the same.

Child Friendly Movement (CFM) is focussed on fighting child labour, human trafficking and especially the trafficking of children for sex. Children are getting trafficked because of a lack of awareness and vulnerability because of their poverty.

CFM believes that each child deserves a quality education. It is not only his or her birth right but a necessity for their future existence. CFM believes in the UN conventions on the rights of children. The Movement believes that if we protect children and give them quality education, then 95% of the world’s problems will be eliminated.

Establishing a Community School

The Child Friendly Movement CFM is about reaching and teaching those who are referred to as ‘slum children’. CFM is literally an outreach to a community of children, with the emphasis on community. Why? - Because only by teaching in community can we begin to solve the interconnected issues of violence against children and especially child trafficking.

The trafficking of children is defined by the UN as: "The recruitment, transport, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a person by such means as threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud or deception for the purpose of exploitation" So for example, if you just Google ‘human trafficking in India,’ or ‘Nepal’, you will find many reports and much information on this issue yourself.

We have few illusions about how hard this fight is. The Child Friendly Movement is currently using theatre and community schools as a way of bringing children to into the school and away from outside exploitation.

Maybe it is a pied piper approach? These children are multiple victims; of our lack of awareness, our ignorance, their rank poverty, and they’re often orphans, trapped because they don't have any access to formal education nor support outside sometimes violent territorial gangs.

This vicious circle is going on and on, from generation to generation.

These children are part and parcel of everything that is wrong in a world they did not create: poverty, violence, illiteracy, and increasing crime in which they are quite simply struggling for

existential survival. So if we can provide children with some form of basic and proper education we can help stop or at least impede many, if not all of these social ills. From a holistic view a proper education means rejuvenating the whole world. The world may be connected, and Facebook may have several billions users- but these children don't get the opportunity to access that free wired information. Information in the air but, you need a smart phone or computer to access it, which they don’t have. Even if they could get a smart phone, they are not sufficiently clued in to their own predicament to use it as a tool for escape.

How to eradicate it? Awareness and knowledge are our master keys and can help. We have already done experimental projects and they worked, but now it needs more resources to take root and grow. At grassroots level we found that we could help both directly and indirectly, because our action has a positive, direct and indirect reaction, with at times a magnificent impact. Having community schools in villages, teaching in community, means local broadcasting and putting the knowledge that is available before them, in ways they get; gradually sensitising and warning them and saving them.

Establishment of a model class This is the age of the internet and a globalised world; teaching them how to use it for gaining basic information means they can come to know their human rights, they can access any Government benefit, as most are published online and villagers and marginalised people usually don't know anything about it. Connecting children, women and other villagers,

teaching them how to use the internet constructively is we think the best way to help them get to the information age and so that is a primary aim of CFM's Community School. The knowledge we speak of needs to be of their present world and help bring them into mainstream society.

So, model classes will help children to generate the interest in education. Connecting them to digital world and learning should also be fun, we call it “learn while having fun”

Poverty Elimination We keep hearing that most of the villagers and marginalised people are not sending their children because they are poor. So to address this Child Friendly Movement proposes the Skill development program to the villagers’ both women and children like: Stitching, beautician, driving, motor cycle, bicycle repairing and more. CFM school proposes to establish a complete workshop syllabus for their real world, local skills development, and real employment so we can call it an income generation program too!

This program is also a very good fit for the empowerment and skills development of adult women and is a basis for a program for those children who are above 14 years of age. We have a by-line for this program, “Freedom to Skill and Skill to freedom” This aspect of the program addresses head on the other very real problem of domestic violence - because when women start to earn their own money they will gain the confidence and independent means to make better decisions.

Envisaged Outcome

Through such a program we will aim to reach out to millions of children and parents, with the help of broadcast media; like radio, newspaper, TV and in community with the help of children, parents and our volunteers.

Area Preferences to Establish CFM Community school In India; Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Goa, West Bengal, Varanasi, Delhi and neighbour country Nepal are very important, because most of the trafficking happens from these areas. These are the places which are the hubs of children trafficking. Having CFM's community schools here means we have in place an awareness program, connecting them via some technology, while also alerting them that children are getting sold here for less than $100 and now is the time to save these children

The Child Rights Global Theatre and Community School will directly benefit to thousands and thousands of children and indirectly help millions of other similarly oppressed children.

Contact Details:

Basu Rai

E-mail: basutheactor@gmail.com

website: www.childfm.org