The Department of Women and Child Development, Delhi organised a special Bal Samvad with girls residing in Government run child care institutions on National Girl Child Day on January 24. All senior officers of WCD — including Dr Rashmi Singh, special secretary-cum-director DWCD — interacted online with girls, other residents/caregivers/superintendents of the childcare institutions on two topics ‘Main Hu Leader’ for instilling leadership and ‘Cyber Surakshit Samudaay’ for creating safe cyber space in CCIs in collaboration with Room to Read and Space2Grow resource partners respectively.
The programme was conceptualised under the wider ambit of Bal Samvad commemorating its one year of initiation as an innovative exercise for providing an interface to children of CCIs to share their thoughts, ideas, aspirations and concerns.
“I appeal to all girls to dream big and believe in themselves, for the world is full of endless possibilities,” was the message from Hon’ble Minister, WCD Shri Rajendra Pal Gautam which was read out from the special edition of Bal Samanvay magazine.
The officers present extended their best wishes of National Girl Child Day to girls at CCIs encouraging them to give their 100 per cent in all aspects of their lives to achieve their goals as well to support each other for their overall development. The children were very excited when Dr Singh announced that some surprises are underway as a gift on National Girl Child Day. These were dedicating three booklets to the girls namely Bal Samanvay, Achievements & Milestones of the Department of WCD 2021 and Saheli Samanvay Kendra handbook and a poster on ‘I am a leader’.
It was an exhilarating and motivating experience for children of the CCIs to see their paintings, poetry, writings and more published in the ‘Bal Samanvay booklet’.
Dr Navlendra Kumar Singh, Joint Director DWCD appreciated the publication of these booklets as they would serve as informative public documents which are crucial for generating awareness of the vital work being undertaken by the Department of Women and Child Development for the care and protection of vulnerable children & our endeavors to promote their holistic development.
He further remarked that girls are the foundation of the society and unanimous efforts of everyone are required to empower them.
The Department also took the opportunity to roll out ‘Swachhta hi Seva’ Campaign in CCIs extending the concept from physical hygiene to inner well-being and positive cognitive development. A wide array of activities under the components of wall paintings/murals, story telling/screening of films, hygiene/nutrition & health/sports/fitness/wellness and mindfulness shall be conducted in CCIs in the coming weeks.
In ‘Main hoon leader’ initiated in collaboration with Room to Read, a comic strip depicting leadership stories of girls/women was dedicated to the girls . Under this campaign, girl would be promoted to build their leadership skills by being good communicators, influencing peers to talk and discuss issues related to studying and reading and be conscious about their inbuilt capacities.
Space2Grow conducted its first workshop with girls from Sanskar Ashram Dilshad Garden and Nirmal Chaya on Cyber Surakshit Samudaay for creating safe cyber space in CCIs. The session began with an introduction by Chitra Iyer (Co-founder, Space2Grow).
The session touched upon topics like online child abuse, cyber stalking, identity theft and impersonation, child pornography email hacking and more.
