Breaking Barriers: Pune’s Bal Mitra Mandal Launches “Bag Pack Heroes” to Educate Child Beggars
Pune, 18th May 2023: It is often said that extraordinary problems require extraordinary solutions. The Bal Mitra Mandal (BMM), a flagship programme of Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation (KSCF) for children living in urban slums, has come up with one such unique way to lead child beggars in Pune to schools, where BMM children are conducting “street classes” for the children at traffic lights and encourage them to join schools.
The campaign titled “Bag Pack heroes” is one of a kind summer vacation initiative ideated by the children of the child council from BMM and is being launched today. These child leaders, who themselves are from the slum areas of Pune, want to bring the change that has made their own lives better and filled with hope for the future.
These child leaders will use their vacation time with the children at traffic signals, sensitize them about the right to education and encourage them to go to schools. To execute the idea and conduct ‘street classes’, the children have raised funds and also plan to create a circle of compassion reaching to the masses on the streets.
“This unique initiative is not just act as a catalyst to help child beggars and lead them to the path of education, but is also an important step in making these child leaders more compassionate towards others. This initiative will definitely lead to bigger changes and create a compassionate social network we are striving for. Besides learning the art of teaching through a unique way, these children will also learn to empathize and be compassionate about the issues being faced by these children at traffic lights,” Rakesh Senger, Executive Director, Programmes, KSCF, said.
Ten children, accompanied by senior activists, nine chowks where one child leader teaches, two others support in helping kids in understanding, and mainly fetch information regarding their names, age, and other details like if they are going to school at all.
The child leaders of the BMM teach subjects like Maths, science, English through art, music and play, and also distribute materials like drawing sheets, pen, pencil, books to them.
BMM, with a total outreach of 82,825 as of now, was launched in 2018 and is a sustainable, holistic and preventive intervention for child protection and development in urban slum communities. BMM, which literally means child friendly community, is a concept based on the flagship programme of KSCF – Bal Mitra Gram which is functional in rural India.
BMM empowers children and their communities to collectively work towards securing their rights and protect them from child labour, child sexual abuse and raise their awareness on education, water, sanitation, hygiene and livelihood, through democratic actions.
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