The role children can play in the development of a country’s political, social and economic status is commendable. Just by providing our nation’s youth with simple educational and financial opportunities to grow and showcase their interests and skills, will create an unbreakable foundation for the future of our entire country. The upsetting fact is that India is infamous for its astonishing data on child labour, child abuse and neglect, child developement and overall crimes against children. The children of our country seem to be moving backwards instead of building a more stable and sustainable future for themselves.
Since decades, child labour has been practised on a extermely high rate in our country. This upsetting fact gets even more concerning when the reasons behind it are uncovered, many children have to resort to child labour in order to improve their living condition or under the pressure of their families. Naturally during the pandemic, when the entire country struggled financially, more and more children were pushed into practsing child labour. Even children with access to education were stuck indoors, attending online classes, losing out on valuable time that could be spent in the development of their intellectual and physical abilities. In 2020, our Vice President, being a recently graduated student himself, experienced the harsh effects of the pandemic on the social life and education of our youth. Examining the state and suffering of the children of our country, drove our Vice President to encourage our NGO to get heavily involved in ensuring a better and secure tomorrow for the numerous children of Bandhwari and Mandawar. Jas Kalra would personally interact with them, play sports with them, give them motivational talks, conduct English, Math and General knowledge classes, build facilities for them, organise fun events and activities for their social and creative wellbeing, and ensure that they have all the required amenities to do well in school such as school bags, notebooks, stationery, tiffin box, water bottles etc.
A playground is extremely important for a child’s social and physical growth. It is in playgrounds that children interact with one another, engage in playing various sports, hold street plays, practice yoga, martial arts and taekwondo classes, etc. However, a noticeable dilemma unfolds in most villages when their playgrounds could not promise developmental activities to its children, even after the end of the lockdown. Since most villages have poorly constructed playgrounds and some lack them altogether, the children of both Bandhwari and Mandawar Village were not even given the chance to prosper in a playground and exhibit the true spirit of childhood by outdoor playfulness. The negative impact of such unequal opportunities did not sit well with our young and spirited Vice President. With his narrative on humanitarian social work dedicated to empowering and inspiring the young and bright children of India, he set out to fix this problem one step at a time. Members of the team of the Earth Saviours Foundation worked day and night to give the children of Mandawar and Bandhwari Village the playground of their dreams. With the help of young volunteers filled with the same enthusiasm for empowering the playful youth, we constructed free-of-cost playgrounds in both the Villages where our Gurukuls are, and filled them with swings, slides, seesaws, a cricket practise net, a football field, badminton court and installed an open air swing gym.
Cycling is considered as a healthy and fun-filled activity, children should especially cycle as it helps in the development of their social and physical skills. Unfortunately many children residing in small towns and villages, are not provided with adequate exercising equipment, especially those that encourage them to socialise and enjoy. This obstacle was noticed by our founder, Shri Ravi Kalra, who with the help of our hardworking social workers, held a cycle distribution campaign for the children of Bandhwari village. On 15th august, our Vice President celebrated the nation's freedom with the 400 bright and driven children of Government Senior Secondary School Gurugram, Haryana. During the celebrations, he distributed a new batch of school bags to the children, which consisted of nutritional goodies, stationary and learning equipment. Jas Kalra also gave an educational speech about child welfare and development, encouraging our youth to grow and evolve. He hoped that on the occasion of our country’s independence, not just the children of bandhwari, but all of India’s youth, would expand their intellectual wings and learn how to fly freely, taking our nation to unparalleled and immense heights.
