With barely a few weeks left for the country’s new Parliament to convene, representatives of the newly-formed Tamil Nadu-Puducherry State Parliament of Children here passed several resolutions during the first session here on Thursday.
Prominent among the sixth State Parliament’s suggestions was raising the age limit for compulsory primary education from 14 to 18. Around 350 students from across the State participated in the three-day conference of the Forum for Promotion of Child Participation, organised by Arogya Trust and Neighbourhood Community Network (NCN).
Sharing her plight, 15-year-old Swarna Lakshmi, a visually challenged girl from Chennai, who was elected ‘Law Minister,’ said that despite the presence of several educational institutions in her area, she was forced to study in a special school for the visually challenged, situated far away from her house. She urged the schools in the State to admit differently abled students like her and offer appropriate facilities for them.
Some of the other demands made in the conference included effective steps to check female infanticide and sexual abuse of female children; a law to provide and monitor basic amenities in all parts of the State for a proper growth environment for children.
The ‘State Parliament’ is a federation of about 3,000 neighbourhood parliaments. Each parliament comprises 30 children aged 6 to 18 from a neighbourhood. District-level parliaments elect representatives of the State Parliament. The parliaments elect their own ‘Prime Minister,’ ‘Vice-Prime Minister,’ ‘Speaker’ and ‘Ministers.’
The concept, based on ‘sociocracy,’ seeks to organise neighbourhood children’s groups as parliaments at the village, district and State levels to discuss and lobby for issues impacting child rights.
“We have been working with these children for the last two years. Initially, we provided basic training on life skills such as creative and critical thinking, team-building, leadership qualities, trust building and problem solving and so on. Once the children picked up these skills, we formed the Children’s Parliament,” said J. Vennila, Project Head.
The parliament meets once in three months.
During an interaction with media persons here, Mathaiyan from Krishnagiri district, who was elected ‘Prime Minister’ of the State parliament, said, “Village-level parliaments discuss local issues and act upon them. They also represent major issues to us. We, at the State-level, have compiled the issues projected by the village and district-level parliaments and plan to submit the document to the State and Central governments for follow-up action.”
