The Collabor

ators

11

crY

HCL Grant Recipient

Education, 2021

HCL Grant Project Title:

DAAN –

Breaking Barriers and Rebuilding

the Lives of Bedia Girls

Child Rights and You (CRY) believes that

children should be happy, healthy and

creative, and their rights should be protected

and honoured in a society built on respect

for dignity, justice and equity for all. Its

projects have been implemented in the areas

of education, health, nutrition, participation

and protection of children in 19 states, and

have benefitted at least 3 million children.

e HCL Grant Project, DAAN, scaled up

from 8 villages in 4 districts to 28 villages

in 6 districts. It helped replicate the tested

model of working with the Bedia community

of identifying, engaging and tracking the

vulnerable children to restore their rights,

connect them to mainstream education

and bring in social transformation in the

community to prevent adolescent girls from

entering the commercial sex industry. or

the identification of vulnerable girls, the team

innovated six indicators and start engaging

with them from the very beginning. CRY’s

work was presented to the Denotified,

Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribe Welfare

Department, Government of Madhya

Pradesh. e Grant helped reach more than

500 children and identify 250 vulnerable

adolescent girls who are at risk and prevent

them from entering the commercial sex

industry in the project year 2020–2021.

Out of total of 421 adolescent girls, 267

(63 per cent) girls were identified as

vulnerable. 437 children have been enrolled

in the Child Activity Centers (CAC) and

Digital Education Centres with the consent

of parents, out of which 206 are girls

including 131 girls in the age group of 10–18

years; encouraging alternate livelihoods

targeting households with vulnerable girls;

building the agency of boys as well as

girls through life-skill sessions following

Child Center Module, and networking and

linkages with government departments to

create conducive learning environments like

making roads to increase access to school,

develop school infrastructure and increase

the number of hostels for children.