Misc projects : Project on CRY

“What I Can Do, I Must Do”

Rippan Kapur

Before anything else, I am a human being. As is this

little girl.

The rights I enjoy are hers too. She has a right to a

home and family, education, playtime, and protection

from harm and sickness.

Most of all, she has the right to be a child.

A right that she is denied, for no fault of hers.

And so, I pledge to do whatever I can, in my own way,

to fight for her right to have a childhood. With my

skills, with my resources,

with my heart, I will fight for her

because I can and she can't.

 CRY: Mission

To enable people to take responsibility for the

situation of the deprived Indian child and so motivate
them to confront the situation through collective
action thereby giving the child and themselves an
opportunity to realize their full potential.
Preface
 Index

Book One: The General Scenario

Child
Rights

Why are child rights important?

 Situation of Underprivileged Children in Indian
society

 Education

 The Girl Child

 Child Labour

 Commercial Sex Workers

 Mentally / Physically challenged children

Book Two: CRY – The Organization

History

What does it
do?

Nature of
Support

 Direct Action

 Building Capacity

 Networking

 Influencing Policies

How does it
work?

 Resource Mobilization

 Development support

 Community Mobilization

Partnerships
  Resource Organization

 Nodal Agencies

 Government

Case Study : Experiments in Rural Advancements

Case Study : Quality Institutional Care and Alternatives for

Children (QIC&AC)

The Financials

The Management

Book Three: CRY – The Wealth

About Rippan Kapur

CRY Partnered / Assisted Projects

CRY Resources

Book Four: Case Studies

Conclusion

Bibliography
 BOOK ONE
THE GENERAL SCENARIO
Child rights are fundamental freedoms and the inherent rights of all
human beings below the age of 18. These rights apply to every child,
irrespective of the child's parent's / legal guardian's race, color, sex,
creed or other status.

The essential message is equality of opportunity. Girls should be given

the same opportunities as boys. ALL children should have the same
rights and should be given the same opportunity to enjoy an adequate
standard of living.

Why are child rights important?

Child rights maybe broadly classified as the rights of all children to:
• Survival
• Development
• Protection, and
• Participation

Children are innocent, trusting and full of hope. Their childhood should
be joyful and loving. Their lives should mature gradually, as they gain
new experiences. But for many children, the reality of childhood is
altogether different.

Right through history, children have been abused and exploited. They
suffer from hunger and homelessness, work in harmful conditions, high
infant mortality, deficient health care and limited opportunities for
basic education, a child need not live such a life. Childhood can and
must be preserved. Children have the right to survive, develop, be
protected and participate in decisions that impact their lives.

We need to focus on the 4 basic rights of children. In 1992, India

ratified the United Nations Convention on Rights of the Child. The
Charter of Child Rights is built on the principle that "ALL children are
born with fundamental freedoms and ALL human beings have some
inherent rights".

The Charter confers the following basic rights on all children across the
world:
• the right to survival - to life, health, nutrition, name and
nationality
• the right to development - to education, care, leisure, recreation
• the right to protection - from exploitation, abuse, neglect
• the right to participation - to expression, information, thought
and religion

In truth, millions of India's children are denied even the most basic
rights of survival and protection. The statistics are grim. What is worse
is that very little is known of what it means to be part of such horrific
numbers The task before society is huge and people at CRY believe
that every member of our society should take responsibility for their
plight and make a big difference to the children of our nation.

The situation of underprivileged children in Indian

Society

 40 percent of India's population is below the age of 14 years.

 About 60 million Indian children under the age of 6 live below the
poverty line.
 Every second child in the country is malnourished.
 Almost 2 million children in India die every year before reaching
their first birthdays.
 One in 11 dies before his/her fifth birthday.
 7 to 8 lakhs children die every year from easily preventable
diseases like diarrhoea.
 Children from 100 million families live without water at home.
 Children from 150 million families live in households without
electricity.
 Less than half of India's children between the age 6 and 14 go to
school.
  A little over one-third of all children who enroll in grade one
reach grade eight.
 One in every ten children is disabled in India.

Education

Education is most important as it enables a child to realize his or her

full potential; to think, question and judge independently; develop
sense of self-respect, dignity and self-confidence; learn to love and
respect fellow human beings and nature; in decision making; develop
civic sense, citizenship and values of participatory democracy.

 Girls are denied equal opportunities to attend and complete

primary education.
 Unmet challenges include the improvement of the quality of
schooling.
 India has the maximum number of 'out of school' children in the
world.
 Only 60% of Indian children (the total child population below 14
is 228 million) reach grade V, and many of those 'completing'
primary school cannot read or write.
 The Girl Child

In addition to the deaths of infants and children due to malnourishment

and disease, innumerable and unrecorded numbers of girl children are
killed within hours of being born while many others are killed in the
womb itself. Patriarchal norms, low status of women and preference for
male children are the primary reasons that threaten survival of female
children in India. The alarming fact is that female infanticide or
foetuses has increased over the past few decades. While in 1960 there
were 976 girls born for every 1000 boys, in 2001, there are only 927
girls for every 1000 boys.

 1 out of every 6 girls does not live to see her 15th birthday
 One-third of these deaths take place at birth
 Every sixth girl child's death is due to gender discrimination
 Females are victimized far more than males during childhood
 1 out of every 10 women reported some kind of child sexual
abuse during childhood, chiefly by known persons
 1 out of 4 girls is sexually abused before the age of 4
 19% are abused between the ages of 4 and 8
 28% are abused between the ages of 8 and 12
 35% are abused between the ages of 12 and 16
 3 lakh more girls than boys die every year
 Female mortality exceeds male mortality in 224 out of 402
districts in India
 Death rate among girls below the age of 4 years is higher than
that of boys. Even if she escapes infanticide or foeticide, a girl
 child is less likely to receive immunization, nutrition or medical
treatment compared to a male child
 53% of girls in the age group of 5 to 9 years are illiterate
 Every year 27,06,000 children under 5 years die in India. And the
deaths of girl children are higher than those of male children.

Child Labour

Children are often treated as the "property" of the very adults who are
supposed to take care for them, being ordered around, threatened,
coerced, silenced, with complete disregard of them as "persons" with
rights and freedoms.

 100 million child labourers in India work in hazardous or

exploitative conditions.
- They work for 12 - 15 hours a day and earn less than Rs.3 per
day.
- They work with explosives, metals, and poisonous gases from
the age of 3 - 4 years.
 15 million of these children are bonded labourers.
 There are 11 million homeless children, living on the streets.
 One out of two children between the ages of 6 and 14 has no
access to primary education.
 80% of child labour is engaged in agricultural work.
 25% of the victims of commercial sexual exploitation in India are
below 18 years of age.
 Millions of children work to help their families because the adults
do not have appropriate employment and income thus forfeiting
schooling and opportunities to play and rest.
 Children also work because there is demand for cheap labour.
High incidence of child labour is a result of high incidence of
adult unemployment.
 Large numbers of children work simply because there is no
alternative - since, they do not have access to good quality
schools.
 Poor and bonded families often "sell" their children to contractors
who promise lucrative jobs in the cities and the children end up
being employed in brothels, hotels and domestic work. Many run
away and find a life on the streets.
 All children have the right to be protected from work that
interferes with their normal growth and development.
Abandoned children, children without families and disabled
children need special care and protection.

Child commercial sex workers

 There are approximately 2 million child commercial sex workers

between the age of 5 and 15 years and about 3.3 million
between 15 and 18 years
 They form 40% of the total population of commercial sex
workers in India
 80% of these are found in the 5 metros
  71% of them are illiterate
 500,000 children are forced into this trade every year

Mentally/ physically challenged children

 3% of India's children are mentally/physically challenged

 20 out of every 1000 rural children are mentally/physically
challenged, compared to 16 out of every 1000 urban children
 Mentally/physically challenged girls are at a particular risk to
violence and abuse

CRY works to ensure these rights to all underprivileged children

who could be street children, girl children, and children bonded in
labor, children of commercial sex workers, physically and mentally
challenged children and children in juvenile institutions. CRY believes
all citizens must be accountable for ensuring child rights for every child
in the country.
 BOOK TWO
CRY – THE ORGANIZATION
CRY stands for Child Relief and You. CRY is an Indian non-
government organization (NGO) that works towards restoring basic
rights to underprivileged Indian children.

History

CRY was started by seven young people in December 1978. One of

them, an airline purser called Rippan Kapur, was the moving spirit
behind the project. Their objective - to do what they could, to improve
the situation of underprivileged Indian children. Their first office -
Rippan's mother's dining table.

Unusually, the founders of CRY chose not to found a grassroots-level

implementing organization working directly with and for
underprivileged children. Instead, they opted to make CRY a link
between the millions of Indians who could provide resources and the
thousands of dedicated fieldworkers struggling to function for lack of
them. They saw their role as enablers and in so doing created an
institution that is a unique model of a community movement that takes
responsibility for its weakest and most vulnerable members and
motivates and catalyses change on their behalf.

About CRY

CRY focuses on the 4 basic rights of children. These were defined in

1989, by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, in
an international human rights treaty to which 191 countries, including
India, are signatories.
- The right to survival - to life, health, nutrition, name and
nationality

- The right to development - to education, care, leisure,

recreation

- The right to protection - from exploitation, abuse, neglects

- The right to participation - to expression, information,

thought and religion

CRY works to ensure that these rights are available to all categories of
underprivileged children, including street children, girl children,
children bonded in labor, children of commercial sex workers,
physically and mentally challenged children and children in juvenile
institutions. 25 years after it began work, CRY has made a profound
difference to the lives of more than 1.25 million Indian children, by
channelising the resources of over 100,000 individuals and
organizations. In doing so, it has shown that lasting change happens
when individuals believe it can happen and do what they can to make
it happen.

What does CRY do?

For every underprivileged child, there are at least a handful of people

who want to help. CRY acts as a "link" between two groups:

[a] Development organizations and individuals working at

grassroots level with underprivileged children and communities

[b] people like you who wish to help but don't know how.

In this way, CRY harnesses the money, time and skills of thousands of
individuals and organizations to partner 171 child development

initiatives across India. As such, CRY is an ‘enabling’

organization, as opposed to an 'implementing' one.

The emphasis is on supporting small, nascent initiatives. Over time, as

each grows and achieves stability the nature and quantum of the
support provided evolves. At the other end of the spectrum, the Rippan
Kapur CRY Fellowship Programme seeks to enable motivated
individuals starting a career in grassroots development work to make a
beginning.

Nature of Support

CRY plays the role of a partner to the NGOs it supports. Each infusion
of funds is accompanied by the non-financial inputs like in training,
materials, infrastructure, organization development and moral support.
CRY’s support takes the form of:

Direct Action: Working with children, their parents and the

community in which they live to ensure long-term viability by
encouraging community ownership of the initiative.

Building capacities: Providing inputs in the areas of organization

building, programme development (especially with locally relevant
tools), training, and perspective building in child rights and
accountability.
Networking:

To encourage its partners to share what they know and learn what
they don't, CRY has proactively set up networks which function at
various levels to enhance solidarity, enable the transfer of learning,
increase the effectiveness of policy influencing efforts and establish
standards in the area of public accountability.

CRY has been the prime mover in forming state-level networks of

organizations working for children's rights in Maharashtra, Orissa, West
Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Tamilnadu. CRY is also
part of many state and national issue-based alliances like the
Campaign Against Child Labour (CACL), End Child Prostitution in Asian
Tourism (ECPAT), Donor Agency Network (DAN) and the National
Alliance for the Fundamental Right to Education (NAFRE).

Influencing Policies:

Even though the state is primarily responsible for ensuring the rights of
children, CRY plays an important role in impacting policies on issues
related to children. CRY acts as a consultant to the government for pre-
funding and mid-year evaluation for projects for street children in the
five metropolitan cities. In the future it intends to collaborate with the
government on Member of Parliament Sensitization programmes and
building of an MP's Forum on Child Rights. CRY also plans to work with
various levels of Government to promote a comprehensive Child Rights
Act/Law for India and the formation of a strong Child Rights
Commission.
This enabling position has determined CRY’s strategic choices at every
juncture - from the fundraising methods it employs, to the nature of its
relationship with the NGOs it partners.

How does CRY work?

CRY works by creating awareness (through the Development Support

Team) and raising resources (through the Resource Mobilization Team)
and disbursing them to deserving grassroots initiatives. Apart from
these, CRY has teams working in the areas of organizing material
donations, developing fund raising products, sensitizing specific target
audiences and providing information on specific issues.

Internal support functions, like Communications, Human Resources,

Finance, Planning and Information Technology, also play a key role in
CRY’s organization building efforts.

Resource Mobilization:

CRY's resources come mainly from individuals and organizations. In

fact, in 2001-2002, as much as 81% of the resources raised were from
individual and corporate partnerships.

Greeting cards and other paper products that sell for Rs. 6 to Rs. 180
each, and donations from individuals averaging about Rs. 1500 per
donor per year are the mainstay of CRY’s fundraising efforts. This
allows millions of middle-income Indians from every walk of life to
become part of the movement for children and builds an element of
consciousness-raising into every fundraising activity. Marketing tie-ins
with corporations, events, school and college workshops, media
campaigns, signature drives, the Internet and street theatre also help
to mobilize resources.
Over the years, innovative, first-of-their-kind events have also helped
us raise resources. In 2001-02, events contributed to 6% of CRY’s
resources.

In all of the resource mobilization activities, the focus has always been
to provide ways and means to involve as many people as we can, by
providing opportunities for them to contribute in whatever way they
can, within the context of their own lives.

Development Support:

CRY adopts an angel investor / social venture capitalist approach to

grant making. CRY is always on the look out for promising, nascent,
grassroots NGOs and provides the financial, managerial, informational,
and networking inputs required to help them achieve scale and
sustainability. These include project-planning, financial management,
material requirements, perspective-building programmes, baseline
data establishment, organizational development, training for skill
building, information support, and developing promotional material.

Since inception, CRY has enabled more than 300 child-development

initiatives across the country, thereby making a lasting impact to the
lives of over a million children.
Community Mobilization:

At CRY, there is the belief that only peoples' movements will make a
lasting difference to underprivileged children. In order to create and/or
catalyze peoples' movements, issues need to be examined within
context. From this realization, evolved the philosophy of community
mobilization - empowering communities - be the immediate family or
the immediate neighbourhood or the village or the town, to resolve any
problem.
How CRY works?
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 Partnerships

CRY-partnered development initiatives work in the area of child rights

at the grassroots level and include both individuals and organizations

Individuals : The Rippan Kapur Fellowship programme launched in

1994, highlights the underlying philosophy of CRY - that individuals can
and indeed, do make a difference in changing what needs to be
changed. Since its existence this programme has created a whole
cadre of development professionals working at the grassroots level on
various issues affecting children.
Organizations: CRY supports implementing organizations across India
that work directly with underprivileged children, their communities and
local government bodies; encouraging them towards community
ownership of the initiative to bring about lasting change in the lives of
our nation's children. This is particularly critical where both, society
and government institutions are still plagued by elements of feudalism,
caste, ethnicity and religion.

Resource Organizations

Several initiatives CRY partners have expertise in various areas of

development that enhance the quality of smaller, newer initiatives.
These are resource organisations that develop innovative teaching
methods, materials and raining programmes, playing a vital role in
influencing polices on child rights.
Nodal Agencies

These agencies work as "mini-CRYs". Though we partner hundreds of

initiatives, it’s not possible to reach out to the thousands that require
support. Nodal agencies enable us to increase reach at the
grassroots level, without a corresponding increase in infrastructure and
personnel. They offer both financial and non-financial inputs to smaller
initiatives in the same geographical region.

The Government:

While the state is primarily responsible for ensuring the rights of

children, CRY too has a role to play in impacting policies on issues
related to children. CRY acts as consultants to the government for pre-
funding and mid-year evaluation for projects for street children in the
five metropolitan cities. In the future CRY will be collaborating with the
government on Member of Parliament Sensitisation programmes and
building of an MP's Forum on Child Rights. CRY also plans to work with
various levels of Government to promote a comprehensive Child Rights
Act/Law for India and the formation of a strong Child Rights
Commission.
CASE STUDY : Experiments in Rural Advancements

ERA is a project that CRY started partnering in 1989. ERA operates in

the hills of Pithoragarh, Uttar Pradesh which is unapproachable due to
bad roads, frequently hit by landslides. Income generation
opportunities are few due to its inaccessibility and are terribly unsafe
with wild animals roaming around freely with many cases of children
being snatched away by leopards.

There are few Government run schools and primary health facilities.
Children in this region supplement family income by working as
luggage carriers and the extent of deprivation faced by them is quite
high.

In 1989 CRY began supporting ERA's education, health and community

based programmes of income generation.
Over time, Pawan Rana the project holder, with CRY's partnership,
gained confidence and felt empowered to do more. Slowly, other small
development organisations began approaching ERA for guidance and
CRY saw an opportunity to shift ERA to the status of a nodal agency.
ERA has now reaches out to 10 small groups working in that region.
CRY provides financial support, training and guidance to ERA's workers
on subjects such as project planning, evaluation and monitoring skills.
CASE STUDY : Quality Institutional Care and Alternatives for
Children (QIC&AC)

The Quality Institutional Care and Alternatives for Children (QIC&AC)

initiative is based on some beliefs firmly held by CRY:

 The family is the primary unit for the growth and welfare of
children

 Parents are the primary care givers of their children

 Every child has the right to a family-biological, adoptive, foster

or sponsored

 Institutional care should only be a solution of last resort

 A child should be put in an institution only when the situation in

the family is detrimental to its' growth

 Institutional care should be used for the least possible time

Keeping these beliefs in mind, CRY's activities focus on restoring rights
to children by sensitizing, involving and empowering families and
communities.

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of children seeking

and entering institutional care 10% of who are abandoned or orphans.
Education is often the reason why parents seek institutional care for
their children. Due to lack of access to a good school, poor families
admit their children into institutions, presuming that these offer better
education.

Hence the QIC&AC initiative sets quality standards for institutional care
for children, by establishing resource organizations, enabling relevant
training resources & trained personnel, ensuring partnerships with the
government and by understanding, studying and promoting
alternatives to institutional care for children.

The partners of this initiative are at 2 levels.

Macro level: The Central and State governments, legal adoption

agencies, state level networks and the media

Micro level: Resource Organizations, children involved and their

families, staff in the institutions, district and village-level
government officials and the local community

Youth and Volunteer Action:

Children and youth are potent forces for change. CRY’s Youth Wing
works with privileged school and college students in the age group of
10-25 years, through social service clubs in schools and colleges,
National Social Service (NSS) Wings and youth groups. The objective is
to sensitize them to the situation of their less privileged counterparts
by conducting interactive and professionally developed programmes
with the help of volunteers.
 The Finances

Today the CRY movement comprises over 1.25 lakh individuals and
organizations that contribute an average of Rs 1500 a year. In 2003
alone, CRY was able to channelize these funds to support 171
grassroots initiatives, permanently changing the lives of 92,549 Indian
children. All these with the sole belief that anyone can, and everyone
does, make a difference.
In the year 2003, CRY's key achievements included the following:

 200 child development initiatives supported

 Rs.10.65 crores disbursed to these initiatives

 71,830 children impacted for the better (in terms of education,
healthcare, development and their basic rights)

 35,000 individuals committed to the cause of child rights with

their support financially, time, skills

 3,713 partner organizations committed to the cause of child

rights

 33 schools and 13 colleges covered across India have children &

young adults sensitized

 2196 teachers trained (in non-formal education centres and

government schools)
 The Management

One of CRY's greatest strengths has been the people associated with it
over the years. It has benefited from a wide range of dedicated
individuals who have lent their expertise and skills to build the
organization. Be it the trustees who are the guardians of CRY's ethos,
or the members of its Managing Committee (MANCOM) who steer the
organization to its designated goals, or the many employees and
volunteers who use their time and skills to enable CRY's work or CRY's
development partners, people who make extraordinary change
possible through their work. All of these people make CRY what it is
today - a true people's movement for India's children.
The Managerial Hierarchy:
BOOK THREE
CRY – THE WEALTH
 Rippan Kapur

Rippan Kapur, the airline purser who founded CRY, was an ordinary
person driven by an extraordinary dream - the dream that no Indian
child would be deprived of rights as basic as survival, participation,
protection and development.

Like all of us, Rippan got upset to see the disparities that exist
between privileged and underprivileged children. He hated to see
children begging and working as servants. Unlike most of us, though,
he did something about it. In his case, the action started young.

He joined his school's social service club and read to the blind, visited
children in hospitals, held reading and writing classes for street
children, and started a free dispensary at a slum the Club adopted. To
raise funds for these activities, the Club sold milk. It even won a shield
for the best Interact club!
These qualities of resourcefulness and determination were to come in
handy when Rippan and 6 of his friends started CRY with Rs 50/-
around Rippan's mother's dining table. That was 25 years ago, in 1979.
They felt that something needed to be done to improve the situation of
the underprivileged Indian child.

Uncharacteristically, given their backgrounds and motivations, they

chose not to found a grassroots-level implementing organization
working directly with and for underprivileged children. They opted
instead to make CRY a link between the millions of Indians who could
provide resources and thousands of dedicated people and
organizations at the grassroots level who are struggling to function for
lack of them. This "link" or enabling position has determined CRY's
strategic choices at every juncture - from the fundraising methods it
employs, to the nature of its relationship with the NGOs it partners.

All through the early, difficult years, it was Rippan's passion and
conviction that drove CRY. He was firmly convinced that each of us
could, in our own small way, be an agent of change, and when enough
of us are moved to this, the impact is a lasting change for the better.
All he asked of people was that they help CRY by doing what they were
good at. As he put it, "What I can do, I must do."

Rippan died in 1994, at 40. CRY continues to grow.

Some of Rippan’s Thoughts

On why CRY was formed

CRY was officially registered on January 28, 1979, in response to the

unjust situation of children that we see every day. Children living in the
most inhuman conditions deprived of the most basic means of
sustenance. Children living unsheltered on our city streets, or working
10 hours a day as the bonded property of money lending landowners.
Children who do not know what it means to have a childhood. It stems
primarily from the need to restore the dignity of a child's life, to give
him or her every opportunity to grow and develop.

On people who care (varun)

We also realized that there would be others like us, people with full
time jobs, and family responsibilities, who could not dedicate their
whole life to child welfare, yet wanted to, and could help somehow.
The real task was to bring together these people and transform their
individual contributions - of skills, time, or money - into resources that
would help neglected children.

On how CRY got its name

It came about when a friend of mine and I were looking through a
dictionary for a name for the organization. We had decided to include
CR in the name for Child Relief and then came across the word 'CRY'
and we thought it would be very appropriate since 'Y' would stand for
'YOU'. Because CRY essentially believes that every one of us is gifted
with resources - professional skills, spare time, the ability to raise
funds or materials. And, most important, the desire to share with those
who are less fortunate. By supporting the work of other organizations,
you can touch the lives of the children they serve.

On the objectives of CRY

The chief objective is to restore to Indian children their basic right to
food, shelter, health and education - in short a future. It aims to
provide comprehensive support to development efforts working for
socially and economically deprived children, women and communities.
CRY works towards its social objectives through two routes, viz., direct
assistance to development projects all over the country through its
Development Support Unit; and awareness and sensitization
programmes for the public through the Youth Wing, and in particular
the Communications Division.

On what an individual can do

If you care, I think, you will want to do something. There is no question
about being lazy about writing a cheque. There are so many ways you
can help a child. If you can't give money, you can at least teach the
daughter of your domestic help. I don't think anything we have done is
too exceptional. Anybody out there can do it too

On CRY's support to projects

CRY has supported 80 projects, but you must not get caught in
numbers. They are not important to see quality. We don't help just with
money. We try and provide complete support. For instance, we started
a materials bank in 1992, as a channel for a select range of materials,
from areas of abundance, to others in great need at a nominal cost.
We also conduct training programmes for our projects in the field of
education, health, project management, environment and agriculture.
The word funding is often associated with someone who merely writes
a cheque. But we go much beyond that. Our relationship with the
project does not end by just providing them money. We believe
projects are hampered by lack of resources, and so we do what we can
to help them with these resources. This in turn enables them to focus
on the real work, which is already so difficult. It is in this spirit of
partnership that we work together for children. So CRY maintains a
close relationship with its projects through a combination of project
visits, and mandatory quarterly reports from the project partners.

On the importance of Youth

The influences we receive at an early age determine our social
attitudes. So we have been making efforts to mould these attitudes,
and sensitize children to situations of injustice, more particularly, those
faced by the disadvantaged child, through the programmes of CRY's
Youth Wing. It is an opportunity for us to listen to what children feel
and want for their world.

On CRY's plans
Right from the beginning we have been flexible. We respond to a
situation, and find new directions. So I can't give a blueprint and say
this is what we are going to do. We have always responded to
individuals needs. You see, money is just the means for us, not the
end. Our efforts will be to create as much awareness about the
situation of children as possible, and motivate them to do something to
change this situation.

On whether CRY has made a difference

Yes, I think we have. We have helped over five lakh children till now.
But again numbers don't count. Even if we have changed one life, it
means a great deal to us.

CRY Partnered / Assisted Projects

1. Arambh

2. Avehi Public Charitable Educational Trust

3. Chetna Vikas

4. India Sponsorship Committee

5. JAAG

6. Jiwhala Rural and Tribal Development Organisation

7. Kalapandhari Magasvargiya and Adivasi Gramin Vikas Sanstha

8. Knowledge, Hope, Opportunity and Justice - KHOJ

9. Lokvikas Samajik Sanstha

10. Lokhit Samajik Sanstha

11. People’s Rural Educational Movement

12. Rajashri Shahu Gramin Vikas Prakalp

13. Rachana

14. Rural Development Centre

15. Reach Education Action Programme - REAP

16. Saathi

17. Sankalp Manav Vikas Sansthan

18. Social Institute Programme of Rural Area

19. Society for Development in Environment, Economic Social and Health

Action (Deesha)

20. The Experimental Theatre Foundation - ETF

21. Centre for Social Knowledge and Action (SETU)

22. Ganatar

23. Account Aid, India

24. Communication for Development and Learning

25. National Alliance for the Fundamental Right to Education - NAFRE

26. Action Research on Quality Institutional Care

27. Vikramshila Education Resource Society

28. ACCORD

29. Jabala Action Research Organisation

30. Kajla Janakalyan Samity

31. Mandra Lions Club

32. Mon Foundation

33. New Alipore Praajak Development Society

34. Nishtha

35. Pather Shesh Sabuj Prithivi Unnayan Samiti

36. Pratibandhi Kalyan Kendra

37. Sunderban Social Development Centre

38. Swanirvar

39. Dalit and Adivasi Liberation Thrust

40. Disha

41. Open Learning Systems

42. The Orissa Institute of Medical Research and Health Services

43. Youth Council for Development Alternatives

44. Adarsh Seva Sansthan

45. Bharatiya Kisan Sangha

46. Gram Vikas Foundation

47. Judav

48. Society for Advancement in Tribes, Health, Education and Environment

49. Aasare
50. Association of People with Disability

51. Mythri Sarva Seva Samiti

52. Odanadi Seva Trust

53. Paraspara Trust

54. Rural Environmental Awareness and Community Help - REACH

55. Shanthi Niketan Society

56. Society for Integrated Community Development - SNEHA

57. Society for Assistance to Children in Difficult Situations - SATHI

58. Tribes Development Society

59. Ujwala Rural Development Service Society

60. Centre for Action Research and People’s Development

61. Children’s Welfare Home Innovative for Life Development

62. Collective Action for Rural Development

63. Gramya Resource Centre of Women

64. Grameen Mahila Mandali

65. Mahita

66. Rural Development Welfare Society

67. Sadhana Education Resource Centre

68. Shramika Vikas Kendram

69. Society for National Integration through Education and Humanizing Action

70. Anawim Trust

71. Association for Integrated Rural Development

72. Centre for Rural Education Research and Development Association -

C’REDA

73. Don Bosco Anbu Illam Social Service Society

74. Good Shepherd Society

75. Kaingkarya Social Welfare Organisaition

76. Multipurpose Action Social Service Society - MASS

77. Narikuravar Education and Welfare Society - NEWS

78. Nava Jeevan Trust

79. Programme for Rural Education and Social Service Trust - PRESS Trust

80. Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board

81. The Community Services Guild

82. Tribal Health Initiative

83. Saraswathi

84. Alamb

85. Anchal Charitable Trust

86. Association for Social Health and Rehabilitative Action by Youth - ASHRAY

87. Association for Development

88. Kislay

89. Nav Shrishti

90. Rajiv Neelu Kachwaha Public Trust (SWATI)

91. Samarth The Professionals

92. Alert Sansthan

93. Gharib Nawaz Mahila Evam Bal Kalyan Samiti

94. Gaudwad Gramin Vikas Anusandhan Sansthan

95. Hanuman Van Vikas Samiti

96. Jyoti Vikas Samiti

97. Jan Chetna Sansthan

98. Lok Kalyan Sansthan

99. Lok Shakti Vikas Sansthan

100. Mahan Seva Sansthan

101. Manav Ashritha Sansthan

102. Prayas - Vocational Institute for Mentally Handicapped

103. Samaj Evam Paryavaran Vikas Sansthan

104. Srijamahayam Hastkala Sansthan

105. Centre for Environment and Rural Technology

106. Children Welfare Society

107. Doaba Vikas Evam Utthan Samity

108. Dr. Shambunath Singh Research Foundation

109. Experiments in Rural Advancement - ERA

110. Gram Swaraj Samiti

111. Jan Shikshan Kendra

112. Men’s Institute for Development and Training

113. Samagra Vikas Sansthan

114. Sankalp

115. Shikar Prashikshan Sansthan

116. Shramik Samaj Siksha Sansthan

117. Vikalp

118. Vipin
CRY’s Resources
CRY believes that information has the power to bring about social
change by creating awareness of causes, removing biases, and
bringing people together on a common platform. Its Documentation
Centre at Mumbai provides information about the status of
underprivileged Indian children and child-related information to the
general public, to CRY partners and supporters.

Collection

 Books (including training manuals)

 Children’s encyclopedia

 Reference books and directories

 National and international periodicals (newsletters,

journals, magazines)

 Training kits

 Brochures (national and international)

 Posters

 Audio visuals on children's issues

Services
CRY offers the following services on a subscription basis:
  ‘Docc – Talk’, a monthly bulletin, listing the new additions
to the Documentation Centre.

 ‘In-betweens’ a monthly article index of analytical articles

from 40 journals on development and non-profit
management.

 ‘Education Campaigns’ - a fortnightly update (15th and

30th of every month) of analytical articles on policy and
implementation aspects of education. Available in English,
Marathi, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil. Back dated
issues available from August 2000 onwards.

Publications
The following CRY publications are available for sale:

 The Indian Child - (1999 & 2001 editions) a proactive effort

to create an information base on Child Rights that can be
used by academicians, media professionals, development
workers, policy makers and the concerned public. Rs. 130/-
(postage extra).

 Childhood Matters Series - An in-depth look at CRY's

intervention with children through the CRY-partnered
initiatives, in different states of the country. Supported by
The Titan-CRY Education Fund, each programme featured
in this series documents an innovative approach to child
 development and aims to share these experiences with a
wider audience.

The Materials Bank

The Materials Bank was set up in Delhi in 1991 to provide support in

kind to CRY-partnered initiatives. It is an easy and accessible way for
any one to support CRY's mission. All materials which can be used by
organisations working with children are welcome. These include:

 Educational material like notebooks, pencils, erasers, and

other stationery items.

 Health care material like first-aid kits.

 Recreational materials such as storybooks, comics

(preferably in Hindi), plastic/wooden toys, and so on.

 Other items like clothes - (cottons, woolens etc) dhurries,

blankets, fabrics, etc.
The CRY Shop

At the CRY Shop, a division of CRY, one can experience a great way to
have fun with purpose. Each product in the shop has a story to tell -
about children and their rights to - survival, development, protection
and participation.

CRY’s strength is its work with children and this is extended to the
products. The Shop stocks products created by NGOs working to
ensure children their rights along with the complete range of CRY
products. Child art is used to create unusual, attractive gift articles.
Products for children like educational games, toys ensure learning
while playing. It also has variety of publications, household items
among other goodies that are children centric.
BOOK FOUR
 CASE STUDIES

CASE STUDY : Children's Welfare Society (CWS)

Economic constraints force parents to send the children to work. The
answer to this problem is not to get the children out of work and into
school, but more a dual approach whereby non-formal classes can be
held for children so that they can get an education in spite of having to
work, alongside, getting better opportunities for the parents in order to
eliminate the need for them to send their children to work. This was
implemented very successfully by Children's Welfare Society
(CWS), a CRY-supported initiative, in Ghorewal in Sonebhadra
district in Uttar Pradesh, North India.

When Urmila Kumari sat for her 8th standard Open School Exam, she
had overcome odds so great that her appearing for the exam can
almost qualify as a miracle. 10 years ago, children in Urmila's village
were working on looms in the infamous carpet industry, bonded for life
with little hope of an education. Urmila's life was changed by Children's
Welfare Society (CWS). The organisation was founded with CRY support
and addressed the growing problem of child labour in the carpet
industry. All the children across the 5 villages where CWS worked were
out of school. Their parents were bonded labourers, forced into
bondage because of crop failure and the children had to work to
ensure the survival of the family.

The Approach
Non-formal classes (transit centres) for working children were started,
enabling them to get a chance to educate themselves in spite of
having to work. The organisation started working towards improving
the wages of the parents, ensuring that their children wouldn't have to
work. 28 neighbouring villages joined in making it a true people's
movement. CWS also worked towards the return of community land
seized by the local landlord to the villagers and collective farming
started, with inputs from experts on farming methods and marketing of
produce.

The Results
Today, there are 17 primary schools and 2 middle schools
(government) in Ghorewal and 98% of the Adivasi children attend.
One-time bonded labourers have become village pradhans (chiefs) and
women's self help groups and micro-credit societies have been formed
no longer requiring aide from CRY or CWS.

What was CRY's role in all of this?

 Funding the non-formal education centres and balwadis (pre-

primary centres) for the working children

 Funding the community organisers in CWS who brought the

community together, giving them a perspective on their rights

 Helping CWS plan campaigns and programmes aimed at

mobilizing the community

 Providing training and organisational inputs that ensured the

accountability and effectiveness of the programme

 Linking the child rights agenda with the macro issues of

livelihood
  Building a leadership team in CWS and giving them inputs on
how to advocate for the community rights

 Linking CWS to other NGOs through the state and the country,
thus enabling them to share experiences and learnings.

This, in a nutshell, is what CRY attempts to do with each of the 171

organisations and thousands of communities it works with. The core of
which is the belief that each child has rights that society and the state
owe her - the right to survive, to develop, to be protected against
exploitation and to participate in the decisions affecting her future. So
when the work done by CWS enables 13-year old Urmila Kumari to sit
for her Open School Exam, CWS has only ensured that her family, the
immediate community of which the family is part of and the local
bureaucracy have all recognised this right of Urmila's - the right to an
education.

CASE STUDY : CENTREREDA

The districts of Madurai, Dindigul and Theni, in southern Tamil Nadu,

are prone to severe drought. As a result, migration and landlessness
are common, and children are sent to work in the knitwear units at
Tirupur to support their families. A whopping 30% of the child
population works instead of going to school. They pick flowers, graze
cattle, serve in the tea stalls and automobile workshops, make baskets
and so on. Loans taken from rich landlords, at high rates of interest,
are rarely paid back, leading to an increasing incidence of bonded
labour of both children and adults. Female infanticide is highly
prevalent and the sex ratio in the region is an abysmal 1000:896.

The story of Annakamu is typical. She used to get up at 4 am

everyday and head for the flower fields of Nillakotai. These fields are
inhabited by venomous snakes and Annakamu had lost friends to
snakebites. Nonetheless, she had no option but to risk her life every
morning, because her large family (nine members) needed the money
she earned. She dropped out of school in standard 3, to become a child
labourer.

Annakamu's life changed when CENTREREDA (Center for Rural

Education Development Association) a CRY-supported project
working in Nilakottai block in Dindigul, intervened. In association with
10 other NGOs in the near-by districts, CENTREREDA has formed the
CBC (Campaign for Balanced Childhood) Network, which focuses on
educating children and eliminating child labor. After repeated
counseling sessions with Annakamu and her family, CENTREREDA were
able to persuade Annakamu's family to send her back to school.

Today Annakamu is in the 5th standard and intends to study further.

CENTREREDA's Approach

 Make the community aware of the need for education

 Guide the community on issues like healthcare and alternative

sources of livelihood

 Encourage women to demand the rights of their children

 Rescue and rehabilitate children in bonded labour- 30 children

have been so rescued and rehabilitated over the past year

 Get actively involved in the Village Education Committees and

thereby train the community to monitor, retain and mainstream
the children into formal schools

 Train the CBC staff on child rights to help them better organise
the community into a people's movement

CRY's Role
CENTREREDA is just one of 171 child-development initiatives supported
by CRY. For these initiatives, CRY,

 Educates communities about their rights, so that they do not

get exploited

 Helps develop a leadership team in the project and teaches

them to advocate for community rights

 Funds non-formal education centres and balwadis* for children

  Empowers families and communities to give their children the
best possible education and healthcare

 Helps NGOs like CENTREREDA plan campaigns and

programmes aimed at mobilising the community

 Provides training and organisational inputs that ensure the

accountability and effectiveness of the programme

 Improves health standards by training communities on basic

hygiene and healthcare

 Links NGOs through the state and the country, enabling them
to share experiences and learnings

At the core of all this work is the belief that each child has rights that
society and the state owe her - the right to survive, to develop, to be
protected against exploitation and to participate in the decisions
affecting her future.

Conclusion

 CRY is an independent organization without any political

influence or donor ideology.

 CRY believes in the philosophy of partnership be it with projects,

donors, volunteers, or well-wishers. Its programme planning,
monitoring and evaluation are done on a participatory basis.
 CRY has an experienced, committed Board of Trustees that
sanctions each initiative supported by CRY.

 CRY attracts and retains professionally qualified people who are

committed to working for children.

 CRY’s approach is inclusive - it provides an opportunity for

everyone to participate in this movement for children within the
context of their own lives.

 CRY is scrupulous about observing the highest standards of

accountability and transparency. (It was also the first NGO to
publish our annual results).

 CRY has developed a thorough process for selection and

appraisal of initiatives to be supported, as well as highly effective
planning, monitoring and evaluation systems that are applied to
each of the projects that they fund.

 CRY’s Development Support Team provides extensive support to

the initiatives they support.
  CRY has developed a financial risk management module, in
association with a team of chartered accountants.

 CRY recognizes the importance of events as opportunities to

reinforce credibility, enhance image, increase awareness levels,
create media excitement and raise resources.

Bibliography

Official Publications of CRY

Promotional material of CRY

Official Publication of UNICEF

Promotional Material of SMILE

www.cry.org
 
how does cry work18 19& what does cry do16? Poonam

about cry saumil 17

history intro rimple