Save the Children

Mobile Learning Centre:  A bus filled with books, toys, audio-visual content and other learning tools - that visits several Bengaluru localities and engages children from waste-picker communities. The buses were launched at Vidhana Soudha by Honorable Minister for Education Sri. BC Nagesh in October 2021. Currently, these buses reach out to 30 locations, 25 schools and 25 Anganwadi centres to ensure children are able to access education, with a focus on play and activity-based learning methods. Since its launch in October, until March 2022, 2,978 children have accessed the buses.

More than the numbers, it's the smiles that are so precious. Children wait for the bus to arrive and mothers tell us that kids forget to even go home for lunch when the bus is visiting!  

Strengthening existing school structures:  Save the Children India has installed suggestion boxes in 25 schools as a way to listen to children’s voices on problems they face in scool, and their suggestions on what they need for a better learning experience.  Most concerns recorded so far include requests for floor mats, benches and sport materials, notebooks and bags, cleaning of the school campus and drinking water. These boxes are opened regularly and suggestions are discussed with teachers and school administration.

Vaccine awareness: A mobile van campaign with a video to raise awareness on taking the COVID-19 vaccine was launched in December 2021 to address vaccine hesitancy in Bengaluru. The campaign was inaugurated by Honorable Governor of Karnataka – Gelhot Tawar Chand, and reached 30 locations, covered twice a day, over a month.

Right to identity: Helping the community get identity cards and other documents that make them eligible for social schemes.

Group meetings: To ensure the sustainability of on-ground activities and interventions, Save the Children has formed parent groups at each of the localities they work in. These groups have scheduled meetings where parents are exposed to positive parenting, activities to do with their children for better brain development, ways to improve infant and young child feeding, and school readiness. At child and adolescent group meetings, children are exposed to child rights issues including the right to education, the right against child labour and child marriages, and ways to protect children from abuse. Gender equality is another major theme at these meetings, as are ways to help parents understand the right time to enrol their children in Anganwadis and schools. 

Other activities:

Collaborated with All India Radio to bring awareness on ‘Child Rights’ through 10 dedicated episodes, with each episode featuring a child and an expert talking about the rights of the child. After the episodes, 9 children got access to Right to Participation, 19 million listenership was recorded.

Photojournalism course: 10 children from across Save the Children’s project locations participated in a photography and child rights workshop. They were each given a  camera to capture their world and their issues from their perspective. The photos were compiled into a photobook and an exhibition in collaboration with the government is in the works. See the photobook here.
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