International Children’s Day is celebrated annually on November 20. But, because of the election in Nepal that day, SDA postponed the day’s celebration to December 4. The SDA education team organised a program in Shree Deutis Primary School, Deutis Ward no 4, Kailash Rural Municipality.
The day celebration started with a formal program in the presence of Tilak Bahadur Moktan – Ward Chairperson of ward 4, Ramesh Ghalan – Ward Child-Friendly Facilitator Ward 4, Rabindra Shah – SDA Field Coordinator, SDA Education Team, Deutis School Educators, Students, Parents and Guardians. The guests gave speeches on the importance of child rights and the status of children in Kailash Rural Municipality. The second phase had different games for the students, in which they participated excitedly and won prizes. While the students were playing games, SDA PR Officer sat with the Child-Friendly Facilitator to talk about his work and child-friendliness in the area.
Ramesh Ghalan from Likche has been working as a Child-Friendly Facilitator for a year. His duties, as one can tell from his position, centre around creating a child-friendly environment in places designated by the local government, such as schools. Since his appointment, Ramesh has initiated some notable works, albeit slowly, for reasons he did not mention. Child clubs have formed in five schools of Deutish and some in the communities. And now all the clubs sit for a meeting every month.
“We have already completed the orientation program about the Child-Friendly concepts and program at every corner of the community”. Ramesh reflects on his work so far. He is on a mission to establish child-friendly schools and communities, resulting in a child-friendly ward.
The provision of a Child-Friendly facilitator was not there before. Ramesh, who studied rural development and sociology, is satisfied with his current career choice and likes working at the grassroots level for the welfare of the children. He is appreciative of having the opportunity to work as a child-friendly facilitator.
More active at the community level than in the schools, Ramesh is involved in the child clubs of schools only when necessary. Once he hands the Child-Friendly Indicators to the schools, they take over the responsibility and teach the students.
Condition of Child Rights in Kailash Rural Municipality
“The condition of child rights in Kailash Rural Municipality is fragile, especially in far areas,” Ramesh states the reality. Children have to walk for more than two hours to reach school. Their parents do not come from an educational background. The higher secondary schools are very far, which increases dropout rates. Similarly, many families cannot afford stationery supplies for their school-going students because of their poor economic situation.
Additionally, child marriage is one of the evil practices still prevailing in the rural hills of Makwanpur. Ramesh and the local government have been doing awareness programs to reduce, if not end it. They separate the child couple in the agreement or move for the legal procedure should the former not work.
Progress is not linear, and the little changes in the past year since the appointment of Ramesh prove it. The government did not have a child-friendly facilitator before, and now it does, which is already a significant change.
People in the community were not even familiar with something as trivial of a concept as a child. People thought only 5/6 years old were children, which is false. The lack of awareness explains the child rights situation in rural places like Kailash. “It was at zero when I first started. Gradually, there have been slight improvements because people are familiar with child rights and their importance.” Ramesh shares the progress.
Child-Friendly Indicators
Once the new government began to post local elections in May 2022, the work on planning, preparing and spreading the child-friendly indicators started happening. There are fifty-five child-friendly indicators. At first, they only formed child clubs at schools following the direction of the rural municipality. There were no immediate plans to raise awareness at that time.
The government has the aim to create child-friendly schools and communities. And for that, it felt the need to come up with child-friendly indicators because implementing and following all the mentioned 55 indicators would ensure the anticipated child-friendly environment.
Schools alone cannot follow or ensure the implementation of all the indicators. They have to coordinate with ward offices and rural municipalities for that. It is because some indicators require a budget and other resources for implementation. The fulfilment of the indicators would ensure that the desired child-friendliness is intact and guarantee child rights.
While all schools in the area have access to child-friendly indicators, no one has confirmed to ensure each one from the list of indicators. It is still in the initial phase, and as aforementioned, there is the issue of finance and resources.
Students have different capacities. Upon being asked about the plans for creating a child-friendly environment for students with disabilities, Ramesh shared that he plans on raising this issue at the next meeting at the ward office.
The next big step is to receive a letter from the school that they have thoroughly followed the child-friendly indicators. There is a child-friendly contact person at every ward responsible for following up with schools about the progress of child-friendly indicators.
All schools have child clubs and monthly meetings of those clubs as mandated by the local government. Therefore, children are familiar with the roles of Ramesh as a child-friendly facilitator through the meetings held to set up child clubs.
Challenges of Creating a Child-Friendly Environment
The parents and guardians are unaware of the impact of child rights and a child-friendly environment. Even when they understand, they are reluctant to play their part wholly. Most people in the community see folks like Ramesh as someone who is just there to do their paid job. Parents do not pay much attention to the program and the intentions behind them. Still caught up in the old-school thought process, they think such programs come and go and will not bring any changes.
While this reflects the comprehensive level of rural lives, it also says something about the planning and implementation of such programs at a grassroots level. People in the community are rooted in their way of life and are adamant about not making changes. Perhaps it is where the government could act strongly and strengthen intervention methods while initiating new policies. Change does not happen overnight, and the local government should persevere through the hesitant communities and keep pushing.
In the same way, there are problems arising at child clubs of schools. Their only day off is once a week on Saturday. And the monthly meeting also gets held on one of the Saturdays of the month. The students seem busy with household work or disinterested in attending the monthly meetings. They are unwilling to join the child club meetings because they do not get anything tangible. Food, for example.
Furthermore, almost everyone in the community knows about the age restriction for marriage. However, child marriage still occurs. The parents encourage their children for it. And, even when the child-friendly facilitator and other authorities separate the new child couples, they run away and start living together after a while. Ramesh has not received much help from the community to stop child marriage.
People at large do not engage in conversations about child rights. They overlook the issues concerning one of the most vulnerable groups of people. Likewise, Ramesh feels misunderstood about his work and purpose as a child-friendly facilitator.
Progress Thus Far
Kailash Rural Municipality, cornered by geographical disadvantages, illiteracy and poor economic background, is not backed by even one significant developmental factor. Yet, the local government has made many initiatives to establish a child-friendly environment.
Not more than six months ago, all ten ward offices of Kailash Rural Municipality sent out awareness letters about child marriages to every household.
The Child-Friendly team put up notices that discourage child labour and states legal measures the government take for adults involved in it. They had also displayed notices about banning selling narcotics and alcohol to minors. There were orientation programs in the community. The presence of the people was low. The child-friendly facilitator and the team from the ward persisted and completed the program successfully. They continued trying and overcame the challenge of low turnout from the community folks.
Another example: while forming the child clubs, the parents had to be convinced repeatedly regarding its necessity and objectives. The unawareness had to be met with persistence to achieve the goal of setting up child clubs at schools.
To conclude, child-centric progress will not be moving forward if the government stops working for the children once the child-friendly program ends. Child-related work and issues about child rights and a child-friendly environment should concern everyone. And all of us should work for it by helping one another through coordination. It is because the effort of one person is not enough.