Fight for your rights

Namaste from Nepal, where CAC and Childreach Nepal combine forces. Upon meeting our partners in Kathmandu, we embarked on a journey out of the city and into the mountains for a week of training up in the clouds.

Together we bounced five hours up rocky, winding roads through quiet villages while slowly transitioning into a calmer reality. Cutting around cliffs and sliding along streams, we passed farmers with their crops, cows, goats, chickens, and smiling children.

Mesmerised by the nature all around us, it seemed as though every turn brought a new breath-taking view. Gradually rising to 2800 metres in the Langtang Valley region, we arrived at our destination: Yangrima Boarding School in Sindhupalchok.

This school was started in 1986, bombed in 2006, and rebuilt in 2009. This establishment has huge potential to impact the community, with many teachers and students traveling hours each day to attend.

It quickly became clear that we were a great match with Childreach. Their current project “My School, My Voice” is working to create a child parliament that gives young leaders in schools the chance to come together and speak out, seeking solutions for the main challenges they face in their community.

Childreach aspires to cultivate a population of child leaders by increasing education and spreading awareness for child rights. Many of their objectives fit nicely into CAC’s self-directed learning model, so we were excited to work together this week and add an extra level of help with football.

The main social issues identified at the onset of training helped us zero in on their top priorities. When the participants were propositioned to vote privately for what they felt was the biggest issue in their community, child labour was the resounding response, closely followed by corporal punishment. (Gender discrimination trailed just behind, as did child marriage and child trafficking.)

Given this feedback, our curriculum for the week would thus be devoted to child rights, in addition to our usual mix of games covering life skills, conflict resolution, problem solving, and health. The focus on child labour and corporal punishment enabled us to have strong discussion throughout the week about different types of abuse and their negative effects.

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[This article has been edited by the Operating Team]