Child Friendly Response to Covid-19 inflicted Children

The socio-economic crisis induced by the pandemic is resulting in increased amounts of occurrences of social evils like child marriages, labour and abuse. This is in turn leading to long-term psychological impact amount the vulnerable children. In ₹2,000 you could support education for one of the 200 beneficiaries recognised by Spandana. In ₹2,500 you could help the organisation provide groceries to a vulnerable family, eventually safeguarding children from adversities.

Ms. Sakkubai, aged 15 years, was married on 16th June 2021. The village elders advised and supported the girl’s parents to go-ahead with the marriage since they can easily escape from the eyes of the law as the entire administration is busy handling the pandemic. Such incidences are recurring as a result of the pandemic. The impact of the pandemic is observed in children dropping out from school, families migrating back to villages since they lost their jobs in the city due to pandemic. The continued obsession on attitudes and beliefs related to girl child which is increasing child labour practice, violence against children and child marriages are unfolding as a result of the poor vigil by the law enforcing authorities to address child rights violations. Thus large scale deprivation in the realms of survival and development rights of children guaranteed under UNCRC and the Constitution is seen in the villages. Some of these issues are being addressed by the NGOs through direct interventions and reporting the same to Child Welfare Committees constituted under the JJ Act . The children such as Ms. Sakkubai, and Sarita are found to be going through serious trauma and many a times girls do attempt to run away or take recourse to extreme courses of action. The net result being the gross violation of child rights and the family stumbles in the development process.

The main objective of our intervention is to help the child and the family in coping with the stress, trauma and anxiety that surround the issue and help to overcome from the difficult situation. Spandana proposes to respond to these realities through a set of child protection system. The programme staff together with the support of the community based organisations and leaders along with the officials from concerned departments will intervene directly and prevent the child marriages and Child labour. Actions will be initiated against such erring individuals/institutions and thus, protect the interest of the child. At the first instance Spandana proposes to organize child rights sensitization programmes involving the community members with special focus parents by involving , the self-help group members and youths in the village. 

We would address the violations through rescue and rehabilitation measures covering both; the child and the family. We understand that during these troubled times there is need for soul healing touch to the families and communities. Such of those children who have been impacted will be assisted in rejoining their parental families, provide counseling services to enable them to assume normal roles, mainstreaming the child to school to continue education and provide guidance and support to the family through awareness programmes and also to avail benefits of various governmental schemes and programmes under various legislation and policies.

Protecting and promoting Child rights and addressing all violations and deprivations.

Empowering the families of vulnerable and disadvantage children primarily to protect the rights of children and also addressing the socio -economic issues of those families to help indirectly to raise the standard of living .

The impact of the programme will be the well being of the children, the family, the communities and the society in general. The children who are the right holders will be the direct target group of the proposed programme. The intervention will help to protect the rights of those children and help in terms of accessing and continuing their education with the support of the family or the government departments. Through this not only the rights of the children are protected, but also helped in terms of holistic development of their full potentials.

The awareness and capacity building programmes by Spandana will help families for better understanding of child development from RBA , their needs and interests and thus, the development of the family as well. It is expected that the self-esteem of the family member will also grow for working towards improving the status of the girl child.

The economic and the social development of the vulnerable families will contribute to the development of the communities. The enhanced awareness among the community leaders, the local elected representatives will help them to work as guardians for the overall interests of the community and also develop appropriate strategies through which the effective implementation of the social security, housing and employment guarantee schemes under various legislation and policies.