HEya ppl
Here's the much awaited info on the international conference. We had a meeting with Mrs.Shantha Sinha, Mr.Venkat reddy, Mr. Naren ,Ms.Deepa sinha and mr.Arvind of MVF today for close to 3hrs. from our side, moi, uday, pratyusha, zarine, kalyan(mkk), venkat, sowmya and three more from Helix along with Bhargavi (the girl who came on the field trip yesterday) turned up. The meeting was primarily to discuss the international conference and also to discuss about the progress on the english training program. We also did discuss in brief about the newsletter, which was quite well received at the aloor girl's camp yesterday.
With regards to the intl conference, it is gonna be hosted by MVF along with the "Stop Child Labor" campaign which is active in Europe (
www.schoolisthebestplacetowork.org ) from november 2nd-5th. Just a brief background on MVF. MVF operates on a set of non-negotiables on which they take an extreme stance. For ex, the GoI considers only those children employed in 13 so-called hazardous industries as child labor whilst MVF considers any child out of school as a child labourer. They believe this stance has actually helped them to liberate close to 250,000 so far. Many other thinkers and NGOs too have now shifted to this stance and support MVF's non-negotiables (as @
www.mvf-india.org ). This conference basically seeks to generate public awareness on the acute child-labor scenario in India (India is the biggest employer of child labor with close to a third of all child labor in the world) and to bring together forces that believe in MVF's ideology,across the world. Quite a few international NGOs as well as a few European Parliament members are expected to attend. An estimated 3000 participants are expected for the event that will be held at Lalitha Kala Thoranam, Hyderabad.A few more details
here .
So, where does PaGaLGuY.com stand in the picture and how can our members contribute, both at hyderabad as well as across India? Quite a few avenues that we have discussed at the meeting today....lemme give ya folks a gist of what transpired so you all could come up with ur views/suggestions/ideas :
----> Publicity material : as in designing posters,slogans,banners and sending them over to MVF....can be soft-copies....
----> Accompanying visiting international delegates to field trips and sensitizing them on MVF's ideology et al. for this people willing to volunteer would have to do so fulltime between november 2-5th and they MUST have been oriented towards MVF's ideology and practices thoroughly.
----> Spreading awareness on the issue: Now this is something that needs to be done at various platforms and at various levels....Mr.venkat was hinting at we, as in PaGaLGuY.com, taking a stance on child labor and identifying with the non-negotiables....discussing those very non-negotiables so that they get to hear more and more diverse views that are against their ideology.....so that they can reach out to such folks and contribute to the debate healthily.......In this they believe, as an active discussion forum, we can play a good part.....In this context, he mentioned the existence of a forum that has been created a few years back. its called the Child Rights Protection Forum and we could try to get the message across to a lot more people by trying to enlist people for the same. Its charter demands compliance to certain conditions and requires people to accept the anti-child-labor ideology. The forum members are encouraged to take up child rights issues in their vicinity. A token membership fee of Rs.25/- is charged towards the same....shall put up the details of the membership and how to enroll for the same asap
spreading awareness in city also thro' various means is another avenue that we could contribute in. Organizing events across various schools, as mentioned in a previous post, is one thing that we need to design and conduct across the twin cities in the major schools. These could take the shape of debates, essay writing competitions, elocutions etc on the theme of child labor eradication. That way, the message is hopefully percolated down to the home and a healthy discussion on the same takes place.....Any other avenues that ya folks can come up for spreading awareness either in the city, or across the country are most welcome
----> Try to get articles published in the media on child labor and its consequent evils that are prevalent in the society. These need not necessarily be on MVF but on a more generic level talking of the huge problem of child labor in India. In case someone has access to any TV channels, MVF could provide them with specific case studies so they could have something specific to cover on.
----> Conducting roadshows in the run-up to the conference
----> and yes, Mr.Venkat offered us the option to have a stall for PaGaLGuY.com at the international conference complete with a banner et al !!!
Remains to be discussed what we can do with that
so guys.......PLEASE do drop in your suggestions/ideas/comments/etc/etc on any of the above or any of ur own ideas.....and yes
WE DO NEED MORE ACTIVE HANDS. HYDERABAD, R U Listening ???
).....lookin forward to meeting a few more dedicated souls 
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