State level adolescents meet was organised in Bhopal by Child Rights Observatory wherein 100 adolescents from 15 districts participated and shared their views.
These adolescents are part of school forums which are facilitated by district child rights forum, network of Child Rights Observatory in the State.
Adolescents from districts of Bhopal, Sehore, Khandwa, Bhind, Sheopur, Umaria, Annupur, Raisen, Harda, Chhidwara, Rewa, Jhabua, Alirajpur, Datia and Damoh participated in it.
Lavni from Rewa School Forum spoke about the challenges in education and, while Priyanka from Bhopal talked about the challenges of child marriage, Shiksha spoke on the gender divide and how still many girls drop out of the schools and get married early. Adolescents raised issues of challenges in education, child marriage and how still boys and girls drop out of school, corporal punishment, health, immunization and sanitation. They also spoke on Measles Rubella Vaccination and how we as adolescents help spread information and talk about it.
Listening to the adolescents Nirmala Buch, President Child Rights Observatory encouraged adolescents to speak and share their views. She called on them to take leadership and raise the challenges and we together should work to help resolve these challenges. She added that Child Rights Observatory will continue to provide platform to strengthen voices of adolescents.
Michael Juma, Chief UNICEF, Madhya Pradesh spoke about need of quality in education and getting out of school children into learning institutions and greater work need to be done for ending child marriage in the State. He listened to the adolescents and said that we need to listen to adolescents and CRO can advocate to the State so that these voices are heard.
Dr Sheela Bhambal, Secretary, Child Rights Observatory spoke on the importance of nutrition and health to adolescents and answered their queries on the issue. Anil Gulati, Communication Specialist, UNICEF, Madhya Pradesh interacted with adolescents in the meet, spoke on the importance of adolescents speaking on the issues which affect them and they get a platforms like this to share and we need to build on it and take this forward.
Rashmi Saraswat anchored the programme, and Raghuraj Singh, member of CRO was with adolescents at the meet.