World Vision campaign draw attention to school, anganwadi infrastructure

A child delegation supported by World Vision recently met with Minister for Women and Child Development, Krishna Tirath, in New Delhi, and pressed for increased spending on health and education.

The children were part of a nationwide survey to make an assessment of school and anganwadi infrastructure across the country and ascertain how well the systems have catered to their needs.

About 24 children representatives from Karnataka, AP, Haryana, Assam, Uttarkhand and Jharkhand travelled to Delhi earlier this month to share their findings to the government and to the media.

World Vision India Offices in over 40 locations participated in this exercise through the Children's Clubs, Bal Sabhas, Child Parliaments and assessed 1,328 anganwadis and 1,278 Schools.

"We adopted physical verification of schools and anganwadis because structures don't lie, but there is a possibility to mislead children if children were to interview them," said Fr. Thomas Pallithanam, PARA, Andhra Pradesh who coordinated the effort country wide.

The survey findings were presented to the Chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Shanta Sinha.

Later, a child delegation also met with the Minister for Women & Child Development, Krishna Tirath.

The Minister promised the children that she would write to the Finance Minister and also the HRD Ministry and that she would promote equity measures and rights education at all levels.

She promised the children that she would follow up on the concerns raised by them and appreciated their efforts in highlighting the issues.

In addition to surveying infrastructure of schools and anganwadi centres, the campaign also aimed at reminding the government of fulfilling the promise of allocating 6 per cent of GDP for education and 3 per cent for health.

The survey is part of `9 is mine' campaign by Wada Na Todo Abhiyan, World Vision India and National Coalition for Education. They survey checked the lack of infrastructure and basic provisions like water and clean classrooms.