Transform the Lives of Children in Gujarat, India

Balsena is an independent collective run and led by children themselves. After restrictions around COVID-19 has lifted and we are able to do our work in full capacity, there is new energy and enthusiasm among our facilitator and children.

Currently, Balsena is working in 21 areas and 11 schools in Bhavnagar.

Vacation Camp:

Before Balsena even began, Shaishav used to organize vacation camps in the communities. Objective was to keep children from joining child labour. From the past year, due to covid, we couldn’t organize vacation camp, so this year we were very happy to organize the camp. It began on 14^th May and ended on 3^rd June.

In the mornings, with the help of external resource persons and subject experts, we facilitated different activities with children, such as science experiments from day to day objects found nearby, science in the kitchen, maths in day to day life, English, geography of the area they live in and model of solar system, games and sports, paper crafts and creativity, etc. This helped children not only with their studies but also have fun while learning.

On 4^th June, children organized a cultural program for the closure ceremony of vacation camp, teams had prepared dances, plays, and songs to perform. The active children had also prepared a play on the cause of child labour, one team prepared a play on acid attack, etc.

Leadership Camp:

After children’s exams in the month of April, leadership camp was organized from 4^th-6^th May at Maidhar- located near Bhavnagar in an institution based on Nai Talim concept of Gandhiji. 80 Council and active children from 21 communities and children of Aaranyak program in Dediapada participated in this camp.

The objective of this camp was to enhance their leadership capacity and understand the importance of a collective and what makes a collective. Different team building games, discussions and activities were organized for this purpose.  Children also discussed about characteristics of a good leader.  Small games were organized to revisit their knowledge on child rights. Each team in Balsena has 7 samitis(groups) such as sports samite, arts and culture samite, education samite, health samite, etc. From these samitis, they elect two leaders who become part of the Balsena council. In this camp children had a discussion on different roles and responsibility of samitis and brainstormed different ideas for samitis to implement in the upcoming year. Children also elected 4 members to represent Balsena at Gujarat Bal Manch (Federation of children’s collective across Gujarat). They discussed criteria for the representatives and based on that elected four members.

 Lok Bharti sanstha in Maidhar, where the amp was organized has a great laboratory, and equipments, so the college students of this organization also showed children different experiments and explained them as well. In the night, observation of different stars and planets through telescope was also organized.

Children really learnt a lot during this camp and expressed that they would like coming back at Maidhar for the camp, and told the facilitators to organize one soon.

One Day training

Two one day trainings were organized where 113 children participated. The theme of these trainings was self-awareness. Through activity such as passing your body from A5 size paper children learnt that each problem has a solution, but if we think that this s impossible and not try, we can’t move forward, so we must be confident in ourselves and find a solution to come out of any problems.

In this one day trainings, children also discussed about gender and gender based discrimination. They also discussed different solutions to tackle the discriminations.

Children learnt to express their thoughts and opinions and learnt logical thinking as well. Passing their body through a paper also helped in boosting their self-confidence.

Council and active Children Meeting:

Two meetings of council and active children were held at Shaishav office, and 112 children were part of these meetings.

They discussed about closing ceremony and program of vacation camp, and started practice for the play on issue of child labour. They also discussed planning of the next month, writing newsletter, different work of samitis, program to celebrate environment day, adolescent girls and boys group, Balsena planning for the upcoming year, etc. Children presented about different issues they are facing in their communities and solutions for the same.

As Balsena is completing 20 years in January, children also brainstormed and discussed different ideas to celebrate 20 years of Balsena. 

Exposure Visits:

Two exposure visits were organized for all the teams of Balsena during their vacation. They were taken to Gandhi Museum- Gandhi Smriti in Bhavnagar. Here, they saw exhibition of life journey of Gandhiji, and tried to understand the values that he stood by.

Children were also taken to Barten Library, biggest library of Bhavangar that was built even before independence of India.

Wenlido Trainngs:

In the month of May and June, 3 Balsena facilitators and one child line team member participated in a Training of Trainer of Wenlido organized by Shaishav. Wenlido is a persona safety tool for self-defence designed especially for women and girls by women.

We are very happy to share that now in Shaishav, we have a master trainer, two certified trainers who can assist and facilitate the TOTs and four new apprentices as well. This will give boost to our existing work on child protection.

After the training of trainers, we have organized 3 wenlido trainings where 54 girls of age 8-12 have participated.

Thus, past four months have been quite eventful for all of us and we are looking forward to the upcoming year to celebrate Balsena.