CRY on Youth Leader Alignment Spree for Child Rights

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Child Rights Leaders Programme- CRY invites College Students

If you want lasting change for children, then we want YOU!

26^thAugust, 2016: The spirit of volunteering has been integral to CRY- Child Rights and You and in fact is in CRY’s DNA. We started out our work over 36 years back as an endeavour by the youths as we have always strongly believed in the huge potential of this segment in ushering positive change in the lives of underprivileged children

CRY strongly believes what our founder Rippan Kapur used to say, “that ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things, if only their capacity to care is energized”. To further deepen our engagement with youths (in colleges) of the country, nurture leadership in them, and contribute towards outcomes that are beneficial to the cause of child rights, we launched the Child Rights Leaders Programme in 2015

Year one received phenomenal response from a huge number of college goers and after due screening, 35 representing 27 leading colleges and academic institutes of the country got selected. Sakshi Jha, a student of Christ University Bengaluru said, “As a Child Rights Leader, I get the opportunity to create my own army of active and aware soldiers to fight for the rights of the children. And the thing about our generation is, once we are convinced, there is no stopping us. ”

The people selected under this programme are the face of CRY on the concerned campus and as youth leaders, spearhead various campaigns and issues that we undertake. This program seeks to create a buzz on campuses thus motivating college-goers to come forward and make a difference. The Child Rights Leaders (CRLs) through this journey get huge exposure to social and specifically child rights issues, meet many like minded people and groups, see their work getting shared in varied public platforms, and have perspective and skill enhancement which proves be a big bonus in their professional lives up ahead

The range of what the CRLs can innovate and do is wide and exciting. Tanya in Delhi identified the issues of contract labourers in her college campus and along with a few more started to have regular focused learning sessions with the children of the labourers to help them get exposed to the brighter side of things.

Archita took the ‘message in a bottle’ phrase in a different level when she invited all in college to dedicate a few days to recycle used pet jars and come up with innovative messages to ask everyone to play their part in stopping child labour. The entire activity and display which followed generated huge buzz in her campus in Delhi. Two CRLs in Bengaluru enthralled passersby in a city mall with their street theatre and flash mob on children’s right to health and reached out to over 5000 people!

This youth centric leadership programme is to give a start to nurture lifelong leaders who champion child rights, in the various sectors that they eventually get into! Least to say, this one year becomes life changing. Year II edition of the programme is open for fresh round of applications. If you see yourself as an amplifier of child rights causes, one who walks the talk and wants to make a mark amidst the routine and set examples for your peers and juniors to get inspired to join the brigade, this is your chance to bring out the leader in YOU!

For this national programme this year, college students who are pursuing studies in these cities (and adjacent areas) can apply: Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Bangalore, and Chennai.

Those who are keen to be the face of change and believe in action to promote every child’s right to happy, healthy and creative lives, log on to http://www.cry.org/what-to-do/Child-Rights-Leaders-Programme.html to get necessary details and application procedure