Today's youth: A responsible youth

CHILD RIGHTS and You (CRY), is a national organisation, which exists today, to intensify the voice of children. CRY volunteers are none but ordinary people like any of us, with a vision of bringing about a change for the betterment of millions of underprivileged children.

They are college students or young professionals with zeal to help the deprived. They are teachers with a vision to fight for the voiceless sections of the society. They are journalists and lawyers, who apart from their daily work, take out some time to highlight and address the issues of the neglected.

A group of CRY volunteers in Kolkata took a firm stand to find out the problems which are acting as severe hindrance to education for the children of Topsia, one of the most densely populated pockets in Kolkata.

They conducted rigorous surveys in different government and private schools of this area so as to recognise the main roots of such mass violation of the ‘Right to Education Act’. Moreover, a household survey was conducted to dig out the reasons for school dropouts and parents’ attitude. Many parents could not admit their wards to schools because of high fees.

Basically, the residents of Topsia belong to the poor section of the society; their monthly income varies between Rs 2000 and Rs 2500. There are many students who didn’t get an opportunity to study in government schools due to inadequate vacancies. The average number of family members in Topsia are five to seven, wherein the ratio of male:female is 2:3 and adult:child is 1:2; hence as they are totally poverty stricken, schooling of all the children of the family is not affordable. Thus, the dropout rates are very high, especially for the girl child.

Volunteers worked together for filing of a number of right to information (RTIs) to get hold of required data. Some of the RTIs were filed to get related information on the number of schools, teacher vacancies in the schools and the total student strength in the government schools. Some of which revealed some crucial information.

Later on, the volunteers presented their findings in community hearings attended by politicians, ward officers and renowned lawyers.

Few volunteers published their articles in the media to bring this issue in front of the public at large. Furthermore, meticulous work is being done for completing the groundwork to take the legal recourse route to enable children can go to proper school.