Young people can be the drivers of change by being the change they want to see in the world. It was the power of children that led to amendment to the Constitution making education a fundamental right for every Indian, Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi told the students of SRM Institute of Science and Technology.
He urged SRM University to become the first Indian university which will officially start the campaign of ‘100 million for 100 million in India’.
He recalled his struggles to provide a safe life and education for youngsters to the packed auditorium at the institute on Monday. When he started his mission of freeing children from slavery and child labour, he said there were 263 million children who were out of school. Today, the worldover, there were 152 million children who continued to toil in dismal conditions, deprived of their childhood, he said.
Mr. Satyarthi urged the students to register themselves for the campaign, saying “Change is possible, achievable, affordable. You have to be the driver of the change because change is not outside but you are the change, it is inside,” he said. He said, “I am not the beneficiary. I want social transformation. Hundred million children are facing acute poverty, slavery, violence and trafficking.”
He said he wanted to see the end of slavery in his lifetime.
Centre to be set up
SRM president P. Sathyaranayan said a centre of child rights would be established at the University in partnership with the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation.
