It is indeed amazing how a school Principal from a distant area in Makwanpur is motivated to start a child club at their school. The goal of having a child club in schools has proven to raise awareness about children’s rights and welfare, enhance leadership skills and ensure children’s participation in the school and community through various activities. Shree Bhawani Secondary School’s child club is one such example, where the school principal, Mr Balchandra Malla, fully supports the idea of implementing and successfully running a child club.
Schools have always been a place that helps us develop our skills, meet new people and enjoy our childhood. Child clubs in schools are aimed at improving academic performance, development of real-world skills, inculcating healthy habits, exposure to better job opportunities and so forth. But what happens when schools delay establishing child clubs? What happens if the local authorities prioritized the institutionalization of child clubs in every school and ensured the necessary support keeping “the best interests of the child” at the core?
During my recent field trip to Kalikatar, I took advantage of the opportunity to meet with the Principal of Shree Bhawani Secondary School and further discuss this. When asked how many students are involved in the club, he replied that there are 25 members out of which 5 girls are from Shangri-La Development Association (SDA) itself in the club and that one of the school teachers who is available at the time of the event leads the club activities with the simultaneous and constant support of SDA. SDA had constructed a library filled with story books to stimulate the learning environment and provided consistent miscellaneous support, providing games and sports items, sometimes financial assistance to build a trophy for events, distribution of stationery items and school dresses prioritising the school’s child club. The concept of establishing a child club at this school is no different than that of any other child club in the country or elsewhere. Nonetheless, Shree Bhawani’s child club offers extracurricular programs such as gender equality, menstruation and hygiene for women, elocution competitions, sports events, and many more. Of course, the emphasis is on capacity building, platform creation, and social skills- communication, negotiation, conflict resolution, empathy, active listening and so on. The overarching goal of establishing a child club is to provide opportunities for students to cultivate a sense of unity, develop soft skills such as leadership and communication with an individual or large group, and gain emotional intelligence as they form new relationships on the go.
“If Child Club is implemented consistently, any student from a remote village like ours can compete with anyone, whether they are from remote or urban areas. What matters is that they are determined to come forward and showcase their hidden talents. However, it is only doable if the village’s concerned authorities join together and work together.”
Kailash Rural Municipality is home to a semi-nomadic indigenous ethnic group called Chepang. Chepangs are often classified as a highly marginalised group who are also the poorest of the poor, by the National Federation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities (NFDIN). As a result, the Chepang community falls short behind in terms of socioeconomic conditions, access to health care, and education. According to the Kailash Rural Municipality’s Household Survey conducted in 2075, the total number of child marriages taking place stands at 5,020 in numbers, while the percentage is around 21.68. This explains why child marriages are just so widespread in these areas. It is possible that by empowering children through the institutionalization of child clubs in all schools with the support of local government and school authorities, child marriage, which has been prevalent since time immemorial, can be discouraged by providing children with access to appropriate information about sexual and reproductive health among young children.
Despite several activities and programmes conducted in the school, the school faces disparagement when it comes to early child marriage. The Rural Municipality is aiming to become a ‘Child-Friendly Municipality’. When asked by the Principal whether the school requires a certain mandate to operate this child club, he said, “Certainly, a mandate is required. Our school is proud to say that we established a mandate for our child club and intend to carry it out smoothly. However, the concern is with the rural municipality of Kailash, which issues a mandate allowing schools like ours to operate child clubs flexibly.”
According to data provided by the District Public Health Office, Makwanpur, child marriage is most prevalent in the semi-nomadic Chepang communities of Makwanpur. The district’s rural municipalities report that 45 to 86 per cent of children from Chepang communities get married between the ages of 12 and 18. Out of 237 marriages in Bhimphedi Rural Municipality in the fiscal year 2019/20, 58 were child marriages. Of those 58 cases, 75 per cent of the couples had eloped.
Mr Malla told a story of a female student who eloped in grade 8 despite being a member of their school’s child club. It certainly stunned me at first but when he cited reasons I couldn’t agree more with him. Like many children who hail from a low to poor economic background where the main source of survival is earning two meals a day, forget what odd jobs they have to do, the tendency to run away from the household where there is no social or economic or mental stability has little to no choice at all but to elope from the adversities they are thrown by the circumstances at such early ages. To them, escaping reality seems preferable to confronting chaos at a young age. However, they are unaware of the difficulties that marrying young can bring into their lives. However, regardless of how well-off these students’ families are, the major issue in this community is a lack of awareness and government intervention to prevent early child marriage.
Every coin has two sides, they say. Similarly, I wanted to meet with the Kailash Rural Municipality’s Child-Friendly Facilitator. The meeting was scheduled, and we convened in a Literacy Hall on the SDA field grounds. The first thing that came to mind was whether or not there was a municipal mandate for child clubs. Mr Hasta Ram Negi responded that the Child-Friendly Local Governance (CFLG) is still discussing how to go about the entire module of establishing a mandate that can benefit each child club in that rural municipality’s schools. It moved me to learn that the rural municipality is yet to draft a mandate. But then again, the rural municipality is going step by step to produce a mandate gradually yet eventually. The other question that came to mind was how I felt about the importance of child clubs in student life. Mr Negi did state that the rural municipality recognizes the importance of child clubs at the school level. He believes the child clubs will bring the sense of urgency to develop one’s innate abilities, build leadership qualities, understand communities deeply and work in collaboration with stakeholders. He said he understands child clubs could act as the first stage for young students to understand politics and the significance of Youth in Politics. However, they have yet to reach an agreement on a mandate. According to the Nepali calendar, the mandate will most likely be ready by the next fiscal year which is July 2023 according to the Gregorian Calendar.
Because I wanted to go in-depth, I inquired whether the rural municipality had allotted a budget for the operation of child clubs in schools and how many meetings had been held thus far. Mr Negi confirmed that the budget is always allocated at the start of the fiscal year. According to Mr Negi, whenever they propose community meetings, people expect some kind of allowance and benefits, which becomes difficult to manage because the budget is limited to simply distributing money to the audiences.
When I learned that Kailash Rural Municipality is on a mission to end early child marriage, I had to find out more information about the correlation between the absence of a mandate for child clubs and the ambitious plan to eradicate the municipality of early child marriages. Highlighting the positive aspects of “Eradication of Child Marriage” the rural municipality steps in to intervene in any family that is conducting early child marriage and cancells the marriage- sometimes it may go afar when the respective families refuse to do so, likewise, the municipality will punish these families with accordance to Children Act 2075.
Mr Negi sincerely acknowledged that the entire team is yet to achieve goals they aspire to. There appeared to be constant negotiation and disagreement on the table, which frequently caused the plan to be delayed. One sensible thing he encountered was that Nepal’s political structure is constantly changing, and that, as a result of scientific and technological advancements, the generation is rapidly moving from one to another, culminating in enlightenment across building a safer space for all ages becoming a “Necessity is a good teacher.” As a result, change takes time, and absolute eradication of the social issues such as child marriage is only progressively achieved. Kailash Rural Municipality is on its way to finding its light to constitute evolution in terms of the child club mandate and structures.
Mr Negi received a phone call and had to leave in an emergency, so he concluded by promising to propose a mandate for child clubs by the next fiscal year so that schools can collaborate with the rural municipality on more and more exciting endeavours.