Create a Safe Space for Children and Youth

          We work with adolescent boys and girls of age 11 to 16. Activities with the adolescent group create increased understanding about their own gender, the physical, mental and emotional changes during puberty and better interpersonal relationship with the other gender. Apart from the monthly sessions in every area and schools where we work, we have an annual samelan (convention) separately for girls and boys. In the month of December, 2018 we had this event for adolescent boys and girls program consecutively. The theme was on personal safety. Children understood about what to do when they are abused, how to make a safe decision, whom to go for help, how to say “no” with a strong conviction and to create and maintain a strong personal boundary. More than 200 Boys and 300 Girls from different communities and schools participated in this program. 

           Apart from the regular weekly sessions, One day trainings on the theme of "Understanding Waste" were held on 5th and 6th January, 2019.122 children participated in these trainings. They learnt about what is waste, how it harms the environment, about waste segregation, 4Rs: Refuse. Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Many children pledged to create as less waste as possible and to Reuse. 

           Shaishav is part of "Child Rights Collective Gujarat" network. Now Balsena has become one of the founding members of collective of all the children's collective in Gujarat, "Gujarat Balmanch." On 4th, 5^th, and 6th January, children from all the different collectives came together to be part of this Balmanch. This Balmanch had a presence of representatives from different political parties who are preparing manifesto for the next election. 2 children from Balsena also participated in this workshop. Children discussed about the current status on child rights related issues in their respective areas and the things they would like to improve on. They then prepared a document comprising all the issues and possible solutions, and presented that to the representatives from different political parties. This will be used by the political parties while preparing the election manifesto. Balmanch provides a platform for children to be part of larger democratic process of India by involving them in identifying local issues and escalating them to state and national level.

            Each year Balsena children along with Shaishav staff celebrates Balsena Annual day. The objective behind this annual day is to celebrate Balsena' birth anniversary which is on 12th January and also to create an opportunity to children to mingle and befriend children from the other areas and schools. This year it was 16^th year of Balsena since its inception in the year 2003 and we celebrated Annual day on 20th January. We have different themes in each year and this year theme was "Let's play Gandhi Gandhi." We had our theme on “Gandhiji” since this year is the 150^th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. With the objective to take inspiration from Gandhiji’s life we had more than 650 Children participated in Annual program. Instead of talking about Gandhi, children participated in different games and activities, and through reflecting on these experiences, they have learnt values of Gandhi. They were also shown clips from the movie “Gandhi”. Some of the older children and Tarunsena (Youth Collective) members performed a play based on few anecdotes on Gandhiji's life. Children also reflected and wrote some of the values of Gandhiji that they practice in their life and wrote "I am also Gandhi because   ." 

             On 24th January, 2019 children celebrated National Girl Child Day and International Day of Education. Through different activities boys and girls understood about Gender discrimination and why education is important for all. Towards the end of the session, girls pledged that they would continue their studies, and boys pledged that if their parents refuse to send their sister to school, they would help their sisters in convincing their parents.