National Conclave on Child Rights, Safety and Well-being of Students

Expressions' India along with the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights organised a National Conclave for Students at the National Science Centre, Pragati Maidan on 23rd April 2016. 9 students along with School counsellor, Ms. Enakshi Rai attended the conclave. The theme of the conclave was Child Rights, Safety and Wellbeing: The VoiceThe ViewsThe Visionof School Students. More than 25 schools participated in the events organised at the conclave. Saruby Sharma of class XI, Shivangini Sharma of class X and Shrey Gogia of class IX took part in the event, Euphony. They composed a jingle for an advertisement as per the brief and took the second prize Our students also composed and sang a bilingual jingle on Girl Child Education. Simran Narula, Rishab Bhatia, Nikhil Sodi, Ritwika Das Gupta and Tanmaye Kohli took part in the Nukkad Natak event. The topics were given on the spot, and the topic for our team was Dont just Teach me, Educate me.

Prabhsimran Kaur of class X participated in Utopia, a painting competition. She did a beautiful painting of Goddess Durga to depict Women Empowerment. Ritwika Das Gupta of XI took part in Eloquence, an extempore speaking event. Senior members of the NCPCR gave students information about the organisation and the kind of work they do. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) was set up in March 2007 under the Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005, an Act of Parliament (December 2005). The Commission's mandate is to ensure that all laws, policies, programmes, and administrative mechanisms are in consonance with the the child rights perspective as enshrined in the Constitution of India and also the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Commission visualises a rights'-based perspective flowing into national policies and programmes, along with nuanced responses at the state, district and block levels, taking care of specificities and strengths of each region. In order to reach out to every child, it seeks a deeper penetration of communities and households and expects that the ground experience gathered on the field are taken into consideration by all the authorities at the higher levels. Thus, the Commission sees an indispensable role for the state, sound institution-building processes, respect for decentralisation by local bodies and community level and larger societal concern for children and their well-being. We thoroughly enjoyed the Life Skills Summit, as it added to our knowledge on child rights. It taught us that we, as aware citizens of this nation, need to ensure that every child enjoys his/her rights as they not only empowers future citizens to make independent and informed choices, but also contribute to nation- building. Ms. Enakshi Rai.