A Child Friendly City is a local system of good governance
committed to fulfilling children's rights
India
Calcutta City-Level Programme of Action for Street and Working Children (CLPOA)
The City of Calcutta has equipped itself with a city-wide coordinating mechanism for reaching unreached urban children. The City-Level Programme of Action for Street and Working Children (CLPOA) aims at coordinating a variety of efforts underway in the city in favour of poor children and to promote child-rights oriented policies. The CLPOA is an umbrella of Government and non-government agencies committed to extending basic services and protection measures to all deprived urban children. A registered network, the CLPOA operates through six Zonal Committees and is coordinated by a central body whose membership includes Calcutta Municipal Corporation, the sectoral government departments of the West Bengal State Government (Health, Education, Social Welfare, Labour, etc.), Police, Human Rights Commission, the Juvenile Welfare Board, UNICEF, the British Council, India Medical Association, and as many as 50 NGOs. The CLPOA coordinates activities in the areas of pre-primary and primary education, health, legal aid, income-generation, vocational training, counselling. It addresses primarily the excluded and the poor among Calcutta's children, including child workers, street children, rag-pickers, child sex workers and children of sex workers, trafficked children. Its focus is on delivery of basic services, protection of child rights, awareness raising and advocacy. Yearly city-level and zonal workplans are developed jointly. The workplan identifies activities for implementation and provides a framework for area-based monitoring. The partnership structure allows for a city-wide holistic approach, thus overcoming a project-based, ad-hoc approach to child protection. The CLPOA has grown in strength over the years. It now manages large investments for children and influences policy-makers to undertake innovative action.
1. Child Friendly Police
Under the aegis of the CLPOA, the Calcutta Police has adopted a Child Protection Card, jointly issued by the Police and an NGO acting as guarantor for the child. The card can be issued for any child of Calcutta, but is particularly useful to children who live on streets, stations, markets with inadequate family support. Over the past four years, the CLPOA has coordinated with Calcutta Police in conducting training courses for Police officers with the aim of sensitising them to the rights and needs of deprived children and juvenile offenders, and link them with social and protection services. The Police also impart self-defence training to vulnerable children. Today, each Police station co-ordinates with a set of NGOs operating in its area of jurisdiction and hosts health services every Sunday morning. Today, as many as 42 police stations in the city are involved in activities aimed to protect children at risk.
2. Education for ALL Calcutta's Children
The Shikshalaya Prakalpa Programme is an ambitious, first-time attempt to enroll ALL children of Calcutta in regular schools, by identifying and enrolling ALL out of school children. The Shikshalaya Prakalpa programme (or "movement", as it is now called) represents an outstanding case of good practice in urban areas for the following reasons:
- It focuses on one of the fundamental development goals for children -- universal primary education -- in the second largest and one the most deprived cities of India. By reaching out to children who live in poverty and are socially marginalised, the programme attempts to bring into mainstream education a very large group of first generation learners.
- In order to achieve the ambitious goal of enrolling ALL of Calcutta's out-of-school children into regular schools, the programme has designed a strategy aimed at transforming the entire education system of the city.
- A large partnership has been established enlisting the major stakeholders in the areas of education, child protection and urban governance, namely the Education Ministry in the National Government, the Education Departments in the state and city governments, the state-level Urban Affairs, Labour, Social Welfare, Mass Education Departments, Police, school agencies, technical agencies, UNICEF, the British Council and Rotary, the chamber of commerce and the private sector. The partnership also enlists and heavily relies upon a large, well-organised network of about 50 NGOs, coming under the name of City Level Programme of Action for Children (CLPOA), which already operates in the city with the objective of jointly planning and coordinating NGO efforts in favour of disadvantaged children at the municipal level. The CLPOA's role is to mobilise communities, to assess local needs, to set up and manage community-level education centres and to follow up with families to prevent dropping out. The various levels of government assure political and technical support to the programme (including funding by the national government though the DPEP programme). Quality of education, curriculum development and training are ensured by a private school institution - Loreto Day School Sealdah - that has represented quality education in the city for decades. All project partners are organised in a State Resource Group for Education of Deprived Urban Children (SRGEDUC) functioning as the steering committee for the programme. As the name implies, the Groups aims at replicating in all urban areas of the state the method tested out in Calcutta in order to ensure universal enrolment and education of all urban children in the State.
- With the Resource Group in position, funds have been assured. Almost the entire budgetary requirement for the project (Indian Rupees 1,000,000 equivalent to about US$ 3 million) has been met by Government of India. UNICEF contributes about 10% of the cost and the rest is expected to be met through active fund raising, especially with the private sector.
- A city-wide survey has been carried out in order to identify ALL out of school children. All of the141 wards of Calcutta have been surveyed by teams formed by the 50 NGOs organised in the CLPOA programme. The city has been divided by areas and trained NGOs have identified the out-of-school children and mapped them meticulously. First of its kind, the head count has punctually revealed that as many as 44,646 children are out of school in Calcutta. The survey has also assessed the school facilities available in the city and mapped them against need. Gaps have been identified ward-wise.
- While the survey has focussed on low-income areas, domestic child labourers have been identified separately in upper income areas where they are employed and leve. Middle-class school going pupils have "searched" for child workers in high risers where the bulk of the city's domestic child labour resides and is "hidden".
- On the basis of the data assessment, a strategy has been designed by the members of the Resource Group. For 44,646 children, 7,500 bridge courses preparing for formal school enrolment are to be provided, with 25,000 more children enrolling directly into existing primary schools. The formal system has rationalised the location of its schools to bring the service closer to children. Teachers have been deployed on the basis of the need assessed. In order to supplement the formal system - which will be now saturated - 600 Shikalayas will be created to absorb 30,000 children and 100 Shishu Shiksha Kendras to enrol the remaining 5,000. Shishalayas and Sishu Shiksha Kendra are NGO-managed primary education centres targeting 5-9 year-olds. Monitoring is ensured by six observers and six academic advisers, while 10 Resource Centres provide academic support and supervision.
- Such newly created education centres are run by educated youth identified in the commnity and trained as "bare-foot" teachers by Loreto Sealdah Day School, an academic institution having an established reputation for academic excellence and a commitment to working with the most deprived children (such as street children, being educated through a child-to-child method in the Rainbow Programme.) It must be noted that arrangements have been made to ensure that the courses held in such centres are fully recognised by the government system.
- Education materials have been developed, translated into Urdu, Bengali and Hindi languages and printed with a low cost technique.
The survey document provides an interesting tool, which could be fruitfully shared with other municipalities willing to carry out a city-wide mobilisation to involve all out of school children (Calcutta's Deprived Urban Children - A Survey, West Bengal District Primary Education Programme, West Bengal State Resource Group for the Education of the Deprived Urban Child, CLPOA, Loreto Day School Sealdah, Calcutta 1999.) Detailed information on the project is contained in a brochure which has been widely distributed (44,646 -For Some It's a Number, For Us It's a Challenge.)
The CFC Secretariat has produced an in-dept documentation on this initiative (see Good Practices section of this website)
Contact
United Nations Children's Fund
219/2, AJC Bose Road
Kolkata 700 017
West Bengal, India
Telephone (091) 33 287.2477
Fax (091) 287.2510
Email kolkata@unicef.org
Integrated Child Development Services
The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme was launched in 1975. A network of Anganwadi (courtyard play centres) had been created to provide survival and development services to children under the age of six, adolescent girls and expectant and nursing mothers. The first development plans had focused on tribal and rural poor communities but, as a result of sustained advocacy based on data analysis, there was a policy shift in the Government's Tenth Development Plan: the five-year plan for child development and the ICDS programme also focused on the urban poor, extending ICDS outreach in the cities. UNICEF worked on the development of early childcare models in partnership with urban poor communities and NGOs. These included the development of day-care centres for migrant construction workers in Jaipur in collaboration with Vihaan, and a community based nutrition project in Allepey, Kerala that developed a poverty risk index through a Triple A process. An early learning project in Parbhani and Nashik, Maharashtra was carried out in collaboration with the Centre for Learning Resources (Pune). A community based nutrition and early childcare project in Mumbai links community processed to the mainstream ICDS programme. In Madhya Pradesh, urban projects in Bhopal and Indore took a holistic approach to the survival, growth and development of children through women's groups to improve childcare practices.
The ICDS scheme is continuing and is now at its third phase of expansion.
For more information: http://wcd.nic.in/icds.htm
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme to universalize elementary education
Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE) was a national goal which Indian Government wanted to achieve, in partnership with State governments, providing free and quality compulsory education to all children under 14. Programmes had focused on rural as poor urban areas. Inside this framework, in 1999 was launched the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) programme with the aim to improve the performance of schools and provide community owned quality education. States were encouraged to transfer the management of schools to Nagar Palikas (Local Bodies). Many NGOs and agencies, including UNICEF, assisted State governments in education schemes for urban children. UNICEF-supported initiatives and organizations were found in 21 cities/wards across 10 states and included:
• Pratham (Mumbai). The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, UNICEF and individuals launched this project to achieve Universal Primary Education and pre-school education. Pratham is now the largest non governmental organization working to provide quality education to the underprivileged children of India, reaching out to 450,000-500,000 children in 43 cities and 33 million children in 305,000 villages through a range of programs;
• Shikshalaya Prakalpa (Calcutta). The Shikshalaya Prakalpa (Movement for Education) programme aimed to enroll the 45,000 out of school children in Calcutta and was a partnership between stakeholders in education, child protection and urban governance. At the moment the project continues relying on a network of 65 NGOs coordinated by the City Level Programme of Action for Children;
• Bodh Shiksha Samiti (Jaipur). Bodh Shiksha Samiti is a local NGO which supports Bodhshalas (Learning Centres) in seven slums in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Most offers pre-school and primary school programmes. The organization identifies trains and assists mothers and older children to act as teachers. Currently, it reaches out to more than 26,000 deprived children (urban and rural) through its Bodhshalas and government schools in Jaipur as Alwar districts.
Since its beginning, the SSA programme has helped bring approximately 20 million children back to school; most of them are first-generation learners. The gender gap has been reduced and an increasing number of children are transitioning from primary to upper primary school. Many of India’s States are now either approaching universal primary enrollment or have already achieved it.
The Government of India carries out a Joint Review Mission (JRM) twice a year. The main objective of the JRM is to review progress in the implementation of the programme, with respect to SSA goals, and to discuss follow-up actions.
For more information: http://www.educationforallinindia.com/
Poverty Alleviation Programmes
Since 1997, the Indian Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, through States and UT Governments, has implemented the Swarna Jayanti Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) programme. It replaced two earlier urban poverty alleviation schemes focusing on basic services and women's participation, both organized by the Government of India and supported by UNICEF. The programme focused on men as well as women, building on the experiences of the past, and aimed to strengthen community processes. It targeted the urban population living below the poverty line, and promoted self-employment through micro-enterprise and skill development. The SJSRY was based on community empowerment and promoted community organizations such as Neighbourhood Groups, Neighbourhood Committees and Community Development Societies (CDS) in the target areas. The CDSs identified viable projects, with an emphasis on providing holistic social sector inputs including health, education and welfare. Attempts were made to converge schemes by different government departments and NGOs. However, the programme highlighted the challenges of ensuring that children were prioritized on the development agenda.
In 2009, the Ministry has revised some aspects of the programme, including the eligibility criteria and the ceiling for support, and has reintroduced the training skill development component.
For more information: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/cabinet-approves-modified-swarna-jayanti-shahari-rozgar-yojana-scheme_100148698.html
Urban Nutrition Programme in Gilbert Hill Slum
In 1990 an initiative was launched in Gilbert Hill Gamdevi Dongri slum by the SNDT women's University with support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and UNICEF. The predominantly Muslim population of about 100,00 people had refused to participate in other development projects. Families are large, while literacy levels, the status of women and family incomes are low. The population lacked information on the links between health and nutrition problems and poor sanitation and unsafe water, and considered environmental quality to be the government's responsibility. This participatory research project involved the people in gathering data, planning and implementing the study. Results of research on the health and nutrition status of women and children surprised the residents who did not see nutrition as a priority. It revealed a gap between the priorities of the project team and the residents. Women, for example, wanted income generation schemes and saw health and education as low priority. The project workers and residents agreed on a broad agenda of activities involving health, education, income generation and the environment. Attitudes began to change. Local cable television broadcast a video on the needs of children and status of girls. A doctor visited the slum to discuss diarrhoea prevention. Teenage girls with some education were paid to hold Balwadi and literacy classes. The SNDT University helped launch income generating projects and secured contracts for women to stitch lab coats. The project had more impact than expected, including improvements in sanitation, health and nutrition, as well as life skills and livelihood training for local women.
Contact on all four India programmes
Deepika Shrivastava, Project Officer
UNICEF Country Office
73 Lodi Estate
New Delhi 110 003
India
Telephone (91-11) 469.0401
Fax 462.7521
E-mail dshrivastava@unicef.org
In India some complex approaches have been developed to make cities better places for children and women. In the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, the cities of Lucknow and Mirzapur have formulated child friendly city plans of action in collaboration with the state government. The plans include city mapping of urban poor communities, inter-sectoral workshops for convergent planning and a focus on child rights with children's participation. The Calcutta Municipal Corporation, in collaboration with the state of West Bengal, has drafted a comprehensive city plan of action for children within the framework of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The plan, which is coordinated by the Mayor, focuses on eradication of child labour, making all primary schools "joyful learning centres", providing sanitation for children, and granting basic services and protection to all street children in the metropolitan area. In addition, children's participation is highlighted, together with community mobilization and civil society support. The Mayor of Calcutta has also supported a joint project of the All-India Council of Mayors, hosting the launch of the Indian Mayors as Defenders of Children initiative with the participation of 21 Indian municipalities.
(UNICEF - 1/4 Vipul Khand - Gomti Nagar - Lucknow 226 010 - Uttar Pradesh, India e-mail: lucknow@unicef.org)
