Rippan Kapur
little girl.
Child
Rights
Education
Child Labour
History
What does it
do?
Nature of
Support
Direct Action
Building Capacity
Networking
Influencing Policies
How does it
work?
Resource Mobilization
Development support
Community Mobilization
Partnerships
Resource Organization
Nodal Agencies
Government
The Financials
The Management
CRY Resources
Conclusion
Bibliography
BOOK ONE
THE GENERAL SCENARIO
Child rights are fundamental freedoms and the inherent rights of all
human beings below the age of 18. These rights apply to every child,
irrespective of the child's parent's / legal guardian's race, color, sex,
creed or other status.
Child rights maybe broadly classified as the rights of all children to:
• Survival
• Development
• Protection, and
• Participation
Children are innocent, trusting and full of hope. Their childhood should
be joyful and loving. Their lives should mature gradually, as they gain
new experiences. But for many children, the reality of childhood is
altogether different.
Right through history, children have been abused and exploited. They
suffer from hunger and homelessness, work in harmful conditions, high
infant mortality, deficient health care and limited opportunities for
basic education, a child need not live such a life. Childhood can and
must be preserved. Children have the right to survive, develop, be
protected and participate in decisions that impact their lives.
The Charter confers the following basic rights on all children across the
world:
• the right to survival - to life, health, nutrition, name and
nationality
• the right to development - to education, care, leisure, recreation
• the right to protection - from exploitation, abuse, neglect
• the right to participation - to expression, information, thought
and religion
In truth, millions of India's children are denied even the most basic
rights of survival and protection. The statistics are grim. What is worse
is that very little is known of what it means to be part of such horrific
numbers The task before society is huge and people at CRY believe
that every member of our society should take responsibility for their
plight and make a big difference to the children of our nation.
Education
1 out of every 6 girls does not live to see her 15th birthday
One-third of these deaths take place at birth
Every sixth girl child's death is due to gender discrimination
Females are victimized far more than males during childhood
1 out of every 10 women reported some kind of child sexual
abuse during childhood, chiefly by known persons
1 out of 4 girls is sexually abused before the age of 4
19% are abused between the ages of 4 and 8
28% are abused between the ages of 8 and 12
35% are abused between the ages of 12 and 16
3 lakh more girls than boys die every year
Female mortality exceeds male mortality in 224 out of 402
districts in India
Death rate among girls below the age of 4 years is higher than
that of boys. Even if she escapes infanticide or foeticide, a girl
child is less likely to receive immunization, nutrition or medical
treatment compared to a male child
53% of girls in the age group of 5 to 9 years are illiterate
Every year 27,06,000 children under 5 years die in India. And the
deaths of girl children are higher than those of male children.
Child Labour
Children are often treated as the "property" of the very adults who are
supposed to take care for them, being ordered around, threatened,
coerced, silenced, with complete disregard of them as "persons" with
rights and freedoms.
History
About CRY
CRY works to ensure that these rights are available to all categories of
underprivileged children, including street children, girl children,
children bonded in labor, children of commercial sex workers,
physically and mentally challenged children and children in juvenile
institutions. 25 years after it began work, CRY has made a profound
difference to the lives of more than 1.25 million Indian children, by
channelising the resources of over 100,000 individuals and
organizations. In doing so, it has shown that lasting change happens
when individuals believe it can happen and do what they can to make
it happen.
[b] people like you who wish to help but don't know how.
In this way, CRY harnesses the money, time and skills of thousands of
individuals and organizations to partner 171 child development
Nature of Support
CRY plays the role of a partner to the NGOs it supports. Each infusion
of funds is accompanied by the non-financial inputs like in training,
materials, infrastructure, organization development and moral support.
CRY’s support takes the form of:
To encourage its partners to share what they know and learn what
they don't, CRY has proactively set up networks which function at
various levels to enhance solidarity, enable the transfer of learning,
increase the effectiveness of policy influencing efforts and establish
standards in the area of public accountability.
Influencing Policies:
Even though the state is primarily responsible for ensuring the rights of
children, CRY plays an important role in impacting policies on issues
related to children. CRY acts as a consultant to the government for pre-
funding and mid-year evaluation for projects for street children in the
five metropolitan cities. In the future it intends to collaborate with the
government on Member of Parliament Sensitization programmes and
building of an MP's Forum on Child Rights. CRY also plans to work with
various levels of Government to promote a comprehensive Child Rights
Act/Law for India and the formation of a strong Child Rights
Commission.
This enabling position has determined CRY’s strategic choices at every
juncture - from the fundraising methods it employs, to the nature of its
relationship with the NGOs it partners.
Resource Mobilization:
Greeting cards and other paper products that sell for Rs. 6 to Rs. 180
each, and donations from individuals averaging about Rs. 1500 per
donor per year are the mainstay of CRY’s fundraising efforts. This
allows millions of middle-income Indians from every walk of life to
become part of the movement for children and builds an element of
consciousness-raising into every fundraising activity. Marketing tie-ins
with corporations, events, school and college workshops, media
campaigns, signature drives, the Internet and street theatre also help
to mobilize resources.
Over the years, innovative, first-of-their-kind events have also helped
us raise resources. In 2001-02, events contributed to 6% of CRY’s
resources.
In all of the resource mobilization activities, the focus has always been
to provide ways and means to involve as many people as we can, by
providing opportunities for them to contribute in whatever way they
can, within the context of their own lives.
Development Support:
At CRY, there is the belief that only peoples' movements will make a
lasting difference to underprivileged children. In order to create and/or
catalyze peoples' movements, issues need to be examined within
context. From this realization, evolved the philosophy of community
mobilization - empowering communities - be the immediate family or
the immediate neighbourhood or the village or the town, to resolve any
problem.
How CRY works?
H
H
1,00,000
concerned
individuals /
organization
s
s
Resourc
es
Time
Money
Skills
S
S
C
CRY
C
Support
Funds
Training
Accounting
Practices
Orgn.
Buildi
n
ng
n
171 grass
root level
projects
striving for
child rights
c
c
Partnerships
Resource Organizations
The Government:
There are few Government run schools and primary health facilities.
Children in this region supplement family income by working as
luggage carriers and the extent of deprivation faced by them is quite
high.
The family is the primary unit for the growth and welfare of
children
Hence the QIC&AC initiative sets quality standards for institutional care
for children, by establishing resource organizations, enabling relevant
training resources & trained personnel, ensuring partnerships with the
government and by understanding, studying and promoting
alternatives to institutional care for children.
Children and youth are potent forces for change. CRY’s Youth Wing
works with privileged school and college students in the age group of
10-25 years, through social service clubs in schools and colleges,
National Social Service (NSS) Wings and youth groups. The objective is
to sensitize them to the situation of their less privileged counterparts
by conducting interactive and professionally developed programmes
with the help of volunteers.
The Finances
Today the CRY movement comprises over 1.25 lakh individuals and
organizations that contribute an average of Rs 1500 a year. In 2003
alone, CRY was able to channelize these funds to support 171
grassroots initiatives, permanently changing the lives of 92,549 Indian
children. All these with the sole belief that anyone can, and everyone
does, make a difference.
In the year 2003, CRY's key achievements included the following:
One of CRY's greatest strengths has been the people associated with it
over the years. It has benefited from a wide range of dedicated
individuals who have lent their expertise and skills to build the
organization. Be it the trustees who are the guardians of CRY's ethos,
or the members of its Managing Committee (MANCOM) who steer the
organization to its designated goals, or the many employees and
volunteers who use their time and skills to enable CRY's work or CRY's
development partners, people who make extraordinary change
possible through their work. All of these people make CRY what it is
today - a true people's movement for India's children.
The Managerial Hierarchy:
BOOK THREE
CRY – THE WEALTH
Rippan Kapur
Rippan Kapur, the airline purser who founded CRY, was an ordinary
person driven by an extraordinary dream - the dream that no Indian
child would be deprived of rights as basic as survival, participation,
protection and development.
Like all of us, Rippan got upset to see the disparities that exist
between privileged and underprivileged children. He hated to see
children begging and working as servants. Unlike most of us, though,
he did something about it. In his case, the action started young.
He joined his school's social service club and read to the blind, visited
children in hospitals, held reading and writing classes for street
children, and started a free dispensary at a slum the Club adopted. To
raise funds for these activities, the Club sold milk. It even won a shield
for the best Interact club!
These qualities of resourcefulness and determination were to come in
handy when Rippan and 6 of his friends started CRY with Rs 50/-
around Rippan's mother's dining table. That was 25 years ago, in 1979.
They felt that something needed to be done to improve the situation of
the underprivileged Indian child.
All through the early, difficult years, it was Rippan's passion and
conviction that drove CRY. He was firmly convinced that each of us
could, in our own small way, be an agent of change, and when enough
of us are moved to this, the impact is a lasting change for the better.
All he asked of people was that they help CRY by doing what they were
good at. As he put it, "What I can do, I must do."
CRY has supported 80 projects, but you must not get caught in
numbers. They are not important to see quality. We don't help just with
money. We try and provide complete support. For instance, we started
a materials bank in 1992, as a channel for a select range of materials,
from areas of abundance, to others in great need at a nominal cost.
We also conduct training programmes for our projects in the field of
education, health, project management, environment and agriculture.
The word funding is often associated with someone who merely writes
a cheque. But we go much beyond that. Our relationship with the
project does not end by just providing them money. We believe
projects are hampered by lack of resources, and so we do what we can
to help them with these resources. This in turn enables them to focus
on the real work, which is already so difficult. It is in this spirit of
partnership that we work together for children. So CRY maintains a
close relationship with its projects through a combination of project
visits, and mandatory quarterly reports from the project partners.
On CRY's plans
Right from the beginning we have been flexible. We respond to a
situation, and find new directions. So I can't give a blueprint and say
this is what we are going to do. We have always responded to
individuals needs. You see, money is just the means for us, not the
end. Our efforts will be to create as much awareness about the
situation of children as possible, and motivate them to do something to
change this situation.
3. Chetna Vikas
5. JAAG
13. Rachana
16. Saathi
22. Ganatar
28. ACCORD
34. Nishtha
38. Swanirvar
40. Disha
47. Judav
49. Aasare
50. Association of People with Disability
65. Mahita
69. Society for National Integration through Education and Humanizing Action
79. Programme for Rural Education and Social Service Trust - PRESS Trust
83. Saraswathi
84. Alamb
86. Association for Social Health and Rehabilitative Action by Youth - ASHRAY
88. Kislay
114. Sankalp
117. Vikalp
118. Vipin
CRY’s Resources
CRY believes that information has the power to bring about social
change by creating awareness of causes, removing biases, and
bringing people together on a common platform. Its Documentation
Centre at Mumbai provides information about the status of
underprivileged Indian children and child-related information to the
general public, to CRY partners and supporters.
Collection
Children’s encyclopedia
Training kits
Posters
Services
CRY offers the following services on a subscription basis:
‘Docc – Talk’, a monthly bulletin, listing the new additions
to the Documentation Centre.
Publications
The following CRY publications are available for sale:
At the CRY Shop, a division of CRY, one can experience a great way to
have fun with purpose. Each product in the shop has a story to tell -
about children and their rights to - survival, development, protection
and participation.
CRY’s strength is its work with children and this is extended to the
products. The Shop stocks products created by NGOs working to
ensure children their rights along with the complete range of CRY
products. Child art is used to create unusual, attractive gift articles.
Products for children like educational games, toys ensure learning
while playing. It also has variety of publications, household items
among other goodies that are children centric.
BOOK FOUR
CASE STUDIES
When Urmila Kumari sat for her 8th standard Open School Exam, she
had overcome odds so great that her appearing for the exam can
almost qualify as a miracle. 10 years ago, children in Urmila's village
were working on looms in the infamous carpet industry, bonded for life
with little hope of an education. Urmila's life was changed by Children's
Welfare Society (CWS). The organisation was founded with CRY support
and addressed the growing problem of child labour in the carpet
industry. All the children across the 5 villages where CWS worked were
out of school. Their parents were bonded labourers, forced into
bondage because of crop failure and the children had to work to
ensure the survival of the family.
The Approach
Non-formal classes (transit centres) for working children were started,
enabling them to get a chance to educate themselves in spite of
having to work. The organisation started working towards improving
the wages of the parents, ensuring that their children wouldn't have to
work. 28 neighbouring villages joined in making it a true people's
movement. CWS also worked towards the return of community land
seized by the local landlord to the villagers and collective farming
started, with inputs from experts on farming methods and marketing of
produce.
The Results
Today, there are 17 primary schools and 2 middle schools
(government) in Ghorewal and 98% of the Adivasi children attend.
One-time bonded labourers have become village pradhans (chiefs) and
women's self help groups and micro-credit societies have been formed
no longer requiring aide from CRY or CWS.
Linking CWS to other NGOs through the state and the country,
thus enabling them to share experiences and learnings.
Train the CBC staff on child rights to help them better organise
the community into a people's movement
CRY's Role
CENTREREDA is just one of 171 child-development initiatives supported
by CRY. For these initiatives, CRY,
Links NGOs through the state and the country, enabling them
to share experiences and learnings
At the core of all this work is the belief that each child has rights that
society and the state owe her - the right to survive, to develop, to be
protected against exploitation and to participate in the decisions
affecting her future.
Conclusion
Bibliography
www.cry.org
how does cry work18 19& what does cry do16? Poonam