Madhulika Jonathan, the new Jharkhand Chief of United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) taking charge of the office on Tuesday is eager to make a ‘Renewed Commitment’ for improving the life of State’s vulnerable children. Since 2006, she has been closely observing children as Health and HIV Specialist of the UN organisation. In an exclusive interview with The Pioneer, she shared her views on womanhood and what all issues need to be focused in the State. Excerpts:
How are you feeling with the new assignmentIJ
I feel humble as well as privileged because I think it’s a new role wherein I will be responsible to bring the voice of the disadvantaged and unprivileged children for key decisions that affect their lives. I feel very responsible.
Another woman on top! How do you see your selection to be an inspiration for working women of JharkhandIJ
I think women can be where they want to be. The society also has to give them a stepping stone. A woman who works has to take double responsibility of family, home as well as profession. The Community Support System and the security system should be there to get a woman ready.
What’s your perspective about JharkhandIJ
Jharkhand is a young State. It is like an adolescent who is rearing to go. Do things in life and be free. The only thing is that the challenges are many and to achieve them with potential there needs to be a very strong direction to get somewhere. It has the potential of a very strong government. It has very strong sectoral team. I have worked closely with the health, nutrition and child protection teams. Technical people are very strong.
I think what we really need is a ‘Renewed Commitment’ for children. Also, we need to look at the framework with which our policy is worked so that we are more focused because sometimes I feel change is very slow to come. And when the change is slow, it affects the life of the children in an irreparable way. We need to keep children at the forefront of our planning. Children should themselves be a participant component which we have always advocated in the UNICEF programmes like Bal Sansad and Child Reporters programme. We need to make programmes benefiting them and they are quickly affected.
What do you mean by ‘Renewed Commitment’IJ
When I speak about Renewed Commitment, we have now moved almost 10 years forward. lots of Indicators have changed. When we look at the status of our children then we realise that the disparity and the inequities remain. These inequities are largely geographical. Santhal always does worst than the rest part of the State. The urban rural is also coming up with a very big disparity. So, I think unless, we narrow these gaps, we are not going to reach at the end. The process of universalization is definitely the mandate of UNICEF because we are completely aligning with the government programmes. We don’t have individual projects. We work largely with the government like a life partner. We want to focus on them with strategic resources for the women and children who are at the most deprived section.
UNICEF is working with the State Government in several projects. How are you planning to strengthen the bondIJ
From the beginning the collaboration of UNICEF at the national and State-level Governments is very strong because UNICEF never believes in having a separate programme. We definitely are a partner of choice. We are close to CM’s office and further looking how we can provide technical support to his office with direction, data and evidences for children so that we are able to programme better for children and we are actually able to provide immediate gains.
What about UNICEF’s role in spreading sanitation awarenessIJ
On sanitation, I think there is a lot to be done. We are definitely supporting the government for the Swachh Bharat Mission. UNICEF not only wants to strengthen the advocacy policy but we want to have our feet firmly on the ground as we are working on Child Participation and also strengthening Panchayati Raj System. So, we want that balance to be always there. We want to bring the learnings from the ground and see how that can contribute to the advocacy policy.