Sundargarh shows the way to make all Gram Panchayats and District ‘Child Friendly’
Odishabarta
First in the country to make all 279 GPs and district child friendly by 2022
Sundargarh, the district administration has started off to ‘make the district child friendly’. With the support from District Mineral Foundation funds, a project has been taken up to ensure rights of the child being protected and respected at all levels. Since the beginning Sundargarh has initiated many projects for the survival, development and protection of children like to improve child survival through Matru Jyoti, to provide antenatal care (four free ultrasound test) to the pregnant women, provide nutrition food to the children in Anaganwadi Cenres (promotes millets, ragi, and spiriluna), established Maa Gruha (maternity waiting home) for pregnant women, crèches for the care and support of young children (0-3 years), construction of Bala Anganwadi Model and also child friendly police station.
This ‘child friendly gram panchayat’ model will covers aspects of child survival, development, protection and participation and will be implemented all 279 Gram Panchayats of 17 blocks in the district. Through this program platform will be created for children, families and their communities to have more structured engagement with the local government, service providers and administration. The process creates an enabling environment for children and people in the district to have close participation in their own development process.
Gram Panchayat level fact sheet will be prepared based on the indicators on issues related to children’s health, nutrition, education, drinking water, sanitation, hygiene, safety, child protection and participation in planning and development. Children and adolescents of ‘Advika’ groups will be enabled to participate in the planning process and prepare a ‘child led plan’ along with the service providers and other stakeholders at the gram panchayat level.
Gram Panchayat level ‘child rights committee’ will be formed by involving PRI members, GPCPC, SMC, Mother’s Committee, GKS, VMC, VWSC, service providers and other stakeholders. Children and adolescents collectives will get opportunities to present the ‘child led plan’ before the committee and discuss on their issues. Based on the GP fact sheet and the child led plan the committee will identify the indicators and ensure the panchayat and other service providers to work and improve on the indicators.
Opportunities will also be created for children to participate and present their plan at the Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP) meeting and also participate in the Gram Sabha and incorporate the child led plan in the GPDP. As a result the gram sabha will allocate funds for the development of children in the gram panchayat. Similarly at the block level a ‘child rights committee’ will be formed to review and monitor the progress of various indicators headed by the Block Development Officer and a similar committee also be formed at the district level headed by the Collector and District Magistrate to review, monitor and evaluate the progress and achievement of targets.
In this program through this process targets have been outlined to reduce of neonatal death, stunting, all children access to safe and clean drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, all children are in school & learning, protect children from violence and exploitation, and children capacitate to participate in their own development. This model advocate for optimum utilization of existing resources allocated from state as well as central government under various schemes and programs. The model champion for maximum use of human resource potential available in the district and engage them with shared responsibility based on key fundamental principles of participatory development theory.
To execute this project two NGOs, one Youth for Social Development (YSD) is responsible to design the tools, method, process and implement in 8 blocks and secondly Disha will be responsible to implement in 9 blocks in Sundargarh.
One day district level workshop on ‘Making Sundargarh Child Friendly District’ has been organized at Vikash Bhawan, Sundargarh on 20th December, 2021. Collector cum Chairperson DMF Shri. Nikhil Pavan Kalyan, IAS has inaugurated the session as Chief Guest and advised to make every effort to protect the rights of children. All BDOs, CDPOs, DCPO, DEO, DSWO, DWO, DPO, DIPRO, Members of CWC, Superintendent of Police Sundargarh and CPPOs have participated and shared their opinion on this initiative. In this occasion DMF, Sundargarh Chief Executive Officer Sri Maheswar Chandra Naik (OAS) presided over the session, Bibhu Prasad Sahu, Secretary of Youth for Social Development (YSD) presented the detailed project and execution plan specifically the tools, method, and process and finally A. K Azad, Secretary of Disha presented vote of thanks.
