WHERE CHILDREN HAVE A PLATFORM TO RAISE THEIR VOICE
The father has sold the cycle of the school going girl for the cockfight
This is not a headline of any news story but this is
Information given in small piece of paper by a village child found in the suggestion abortion box kept in the Silida village in Keonjhar district in Orissa.
Cockfight is very common sites in the weekly markets in the tribal areas like Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand states. Tribals can be seen in weekly markets cheering the cockfights and also put money to challenge the other side and in the process they lost.
In such a case a tribal girl had to lost her only bicycle in which she used to go to the school situated at a long distance from the village. His father has lost the money in the cockfight and sold the cycle of his daughter. The one sentence The father has sold the cycle of the school going girl not only reflects the problem of a girl child but also the issues of the tribal villages and backward region in general.
The villagers and specially the children now can express their wish, anger, dilemma and complaints as well which they were not able to do so, but writing without mentioning name has made it easy and the suggestions drop box has become the real voice box for them.
Such voice boxes have been installed in few villages in the field area of an NGO to give voices to the children in general and excluded children in particular.
Some more opinions found in the opinion box are as follows.
The teachers gave me half piece of egg so I did not eat.
There are no toys in the school if a football will be provided then we will play.
If a student falls down after the school closes and if some teacher is looking at it then whether the teachers have any responsibility or not, if they have, then why don&rsquot they take it.
There are no adequate teachers in our school, so more teachers must be provided
The student of a class is not able to learn his lessons so teachers should teach well. those students who don't obey the rules of the school should be punished.
There are photographs in every class except our 7th class, so some should be hanged in our class as well.
This is not confined to the children of Keonjhar district but such opinions are pouring in other district as well where the problems of the students are reflecting very clearly.
Teachers are coming at 11 am and leaving school at 1 pm
Teachers are not teaching well these are the remarks of the students of one of the remote villages called Dodapada in Ratingia village in Kandhmal district.
But the students of Duburipari UP School in Kalinga Panchayat of Kandhmal districts seems are very frank and active in giving opinion. Some of their opinions are as follows.
The tins of our school roof have rotten and there are water leakages in the rainy season, so it should be changed.
There is no tube well in our school and the toilet has been damaged.
The quality of mid day meal is not good. The dal provided in the school is very bad, vegetables too also be provided in the mid day meals.
Insufficient rice is being provided in our mid day meals.
The boy students too should be provided with dresses like the girl students
(The tribal girls are in the state are provided with dress.)
The covers were turnout in the books provided in our schools, we should be given good books.
Instead of mathematics we should be taught literature.
Some children are stealing our pens and pencils
We need a playground to play hockey
Whereas the students of Jamkhol village in Sonpur district opined that, they have one class room for 5 classes and one teacher. The teacher is not coming regularly and is an alcoholic one.
The teacher is neither regular nor comes in time.
Students have to wait for him for long time.
So these are the example of the opinion of the students, which were found in the opinion boxes in the different schools in the 5 districts of Odisha including the tribal districts like Koraput, Keonjhar and Kandhmal. The aim of this opinion box is to get the feedback of the children as well as the villagers and discuss the issues to sort it out if possible locally or with help of the officials as well.