Media Release
Mumbai, Dec 17: Jagruti Kendra, a nonprofit and non-government voluntary organisation of St Jude’s Parish, Jerimeri, Mumbai celebrated Children’s Day cum Girl-Child Day on November 27 in St Jude High School Hall. As many as 540 children participated with their slogans, awareness songs, group dances, street plays and speeches. The chief guest was Alpa Vora from UNICEF.
Jagruti Kendra works on different target groups i.e. women, children, youth, senior citizens and domestic workers. The children are organised into small groups known as children’s parliament which meets once a month. Jagruti Kendra conducts trainings for these children on leadership, rights of children, child sexual abuse, interpersonal skills and so on. They are made aware of their local community issues and they have prioritized two urgent and important civic issues which were presented to the office of the Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation in Kurla ‘L’ ward. When the children marched to the ward office, the officers on duty were amazed and welcomed them with respect. The issues presented by children are: 1) Accumulated garbage on the public roads 2) Overflowing drainages in the vicinity of these children’s communities.
Similarly girl children’s groups are also formed by Jagruti Kendra and given training. Awareness programmes are organised for these adolescent girls on violence on women and girls, effects of social media, family life education, communication skill, environment degradation, skill training and communal harmony.
They have the vision for a new society where peace, unity, freedom, secularism, tolerance and social justice will be experienced by all.
The programme began with the slogans by Sr.seema along with the children.
The children from Jasmine zone and Pregati zone sang the awareness songs through which all the participants were made enthusiastic and filled with Joy. All those who reached the place, got involved in the song and slogans.
Yogesh and Tarun Yadav from Ekdisha zone sang the song ‘Nanna Muna Rahi hu desh ka sipahi’.
Children of the Prgati zone sang the ‘Hum honge kamyab’ song, and Jasmine zone sang ‘Sathiyo salam’.
Tubha Khan Prem chya zone also with her melodies voice took the attention of all.
Meanwhile to gain the attention of the children Pratibha also sang a song.
The anchoring of the programme was done by Twinkle and Gaurav, the students of the Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work.
The children from Prem Chaya zone sang the Jagruti Geet and ‘Beti Hu mai Beti Tara banungi’.
Sr Ierne the director of Jagurti Kendra gave the welcome speech. “Today, we are gathered here to celebrate the children’s day and we have the very special guest in our midst as chief guest Alpha Vora and the guest of honor Michelle Dabre from Central for Social Action. The director of the credit society Sr Sanjana and the founder of the Jagurti Kendra Sr Seema were welcomed .The children are given different training and take keen interest in developing in them the love for the community and good human values are taught to them.
The children from Prem Chaya zone performed the prayer dance.
Lighting of the lamp has been the tradition of Indian culture asking God’s blessings. The programme was inaugurated by the lighting of the lamp.
The guests were invited to the stage along with the children from each zone to light the lamp.
Sr Seema welcomed the chief guest Alpha vora who has been a trustee of Jagruti Kendra at the beginning of the organization 34 years ago.
Alpha Vora is the founder of YUVA NGO (Youth for unity and voluntary action) in the slums where they are giving training to the young girls and boys. After a few years she had to resign from the trust Jagruti due to her lack of time. United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) she is a children protection specialist in UNICEF. Jagruti Kendra wants to work with them to help the children.
Being Children’s Day Alpha Vora was felicitated by Krushna Mahtre, one of children from the gathering.
Michelle Dabre was felicitated by Apeksha from Ekta zone.
Fr Avin Franklin the parish priest and Manager of the Jagruti Kendra was felicitated by Sarthak Karande.
The director of the Jagruti Kendra Sr Irene was felicitated by Akhil Jain.
The credit society director Sr Sanjana was felicitated by Shruti, one of the students of the Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work.
Sr Seema, the founder of the Jagruti Kendra also was felicitated.
The children were asked a few general knowledge questions and had the spot prizes for each.
The group dances were performed by the Jasmine zone, Ekta zone and Ekdisha zone. These were folk dances from different states.
Dr Sonia Rodriguez, professor of Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work also was felicitated by the director of the Jagruti Kendra Sr Ierne.
A speech was given by Janvi from Jasmine zone. She said, “Why we celebrate girl child day? International Girl Child Day is celebrated in 2012 onwards. The main reason was to bring the girls forward and give them a good education. The girls and women were deprived of education, rights, health and so on. But now the girls are working in all the fields so the state government and the central government started to give them recognition with the slogan of ‘Beti Bachav Beti Padav’.
The deacon Sylvester delivered a short speech on Children’s Day. He was given this opportunity by Fr Avin since he could not wait for a long time.
“The Children’s Day is celebrated on the birthday of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. So be like the chacha Nehru, listen to your teachers and parents and become one day chacha Nehru .The deacon wished Sr for organizing the program. Jagruti Kendra felicitated deacon Sylvester too.
A street play was staged by the Ekdisha zone children on ‘social media’ .This play gave the message that how social media plays the role in each one’s life. Though we are in 21st century and it is the need of all of us, we need to keep in mind that along with the good benefits of social media there are also the negative effects that we need to be aware of.
Another speech was given by Yogesh Yadav on Children’s Day. Jagurti Kendra has been giving us the training to be responsible citizens of the society. A visit also was conducted to share the problems of the area, summer camps were conducted, drawing competitions also were done. Rights of children are taught as right to education, right to information, Right to play, Right to food, Right to live, Right to have clean and safe environment etc. The Jagurti Kendra is helping us to come forward and participate in different activities conducted by the organization.
Jagruti Kendra has a tradition of felicitating the toppers of the SSC Exam from the surrounding schools.
The toppers of the 2022 students are:
The student of the St Jude School Aryan Patil was felicitated by the Alpha Vora.
The student of the little school Anali chattier was felicitated by Michelle Dabre.
The student of the St Jude School Hezel Santis was felicitated by the Sr Sanjana.
The student of the Yogi Raj School Swati Tiwari was felicitated by Sonia Rodriguez.
Every year the drawing competition for children is organized by Jagruti Kendra in each zone. This year too they had done it .On this day children were given the prizes by the staff of each zone. From each zone there were 3 winners in the drawing competition.
The speech of the chief guest Alpha Vora. “Today I am very happy to see the talents in Jagruti Kendra. The children are very talented. It was shown in their dance, skit and through the speech .The hard work is done in Jerimeri for the children by the Jagruti Kendra. I thank you Sr Seema, Sr Irene, Sr Sanjana and the students of the Nirmala Niketan, College of Social Work.
“Today, we are here to celebrate the Children’s Day and Girl Child Day. Today also November 27 is Constitution Day. Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar is the father of our constitution, but many women had accompanied them also.
On November 21, the United Nations had given the signature to the child right convention 200 countries had decided to give the rights to the children.
The union convention has 54 rights of the children and it is on Google. Child protection committee can be formed by Jagruti Kendra.
N N student Shital and a girl child Anushka proposed vote of thanks. Thanks to all the guests of the programme for giving their valuable time.
They too thanked the trustees and the volunteers of the Jagruti Mahila mandal for their help and support to make this programme a successful one.
The staff of Jagruti Kendra were thanked for their hard work and dedication and all the planning and the preparations were done well.
All the generous people who had helped financially, Augustine for the sound system, Samira Decorators for giving the stage decorations, students of Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work for help and coordination, children who participated in the performance, and the children who were present for the celebrations were thanked.
The children were given the packet of the snacks and the pouch.
The programme ended with the national anthem.