Published On: 2021-07-12

National, July 12, 2021: PRATYeK, an NGO that networks with CSOs globally have recently curated a  virtual national platform, Summer of C1 – NINE for school children from 6th to 12th std. across pan  India. The month-long program was scheduled on weekends of June. It was free of cost, fun filled and  focused on creating positive, productive and proactive young warriors. Through this virtual platform  children learn new skills like painting, music, art, puppetry, dance, storytelling from professional artists  like Andreas Ceska, Nadia Jamil, Arthur Kuggeleyne from across the globe. Children shared their  improvised video recordings based on the art taught to them and the best entries will be selected and  promoted by UNICEF’s #YoungWarrior YuwaaH campaign. More than 3000 children from 200 schools  across India had participated in this workshop.  

Being hopeful, Mr. Steve Rocha, Executive Director, PRATYeK, says, “Challenges makes heroes. It was  a challenge of climate change, inequality that created Greta Thurberg and Malala respectively. The  pandemic has orphaned many kids. Some may become prey of depression and social evils of the  society. NINEISMINE rolled out a platform for them to become Covid warriors and agents of change.  A space to empower skills, express, engage and learn new skills for a better life.” 

This unique platform of Summer of C1-NINE ensured child-participation and child-led advocacy  through virtual creative mass trainings every weekend with an objective of equipping every child with  the skill of using innovative & imaginative means to become young advocates in collaboration with  UNICEF’s YuwaaH initiative. YuWaah has created the Young Warriors Coalition as a partnership to  catalyse a pan-India movement to mobilise and arm 5 million “Young Warriors” to combat COVID-19.  Besides, the 15 Covid appropriate tasks by the Ministry of Health, the NINEISMINE’s campaign  Summer of C1-NINE also adds a 16th challenge to encourage vaccination among people.  

The farewell program, “Bid Fair-well” will culminated on Friday, 2nd July at 5:30 PM where chosen &  compiled videos of the young attendees was released to bid farewell C1-NINE program. In addition,  celebrity bands - Subir Malik and Parikrama pomped up the celebration. The former UN Resident  Coordinator in India Ms.Renata Dessallien addressed the occasion while children from communities  across Jammu Kashmir, Manipur, Andaman, affected by loss of parents due to Covid spoke and made  urgent appeal for their future. This was a booster for art auction to ensure that daily rations meet  families of Covid affected and more importantly ensure that hunger and starvation do not become a  factor for children slipping into child labour, child trafficking.

Ms. Renata Dessallien Former United Nations Resident Coordinator in India was one of the  key speakers of the fundraising event and shared her thoughts on the work done by PRATYeK  | NINEISMINE on child rights and earth rights. “I am impressed by the way PRATYeK engage  young people as champions of COVID19 Appropriate Behaviour”. She further added, “During  the second wave of the pandemic in India, PRATYeK set up relief camps, ration distribution  centres, distributed millions of hot meals and ration kits to the last mile.” 

About PRATYeK: 

PRATYeK convenes the NINEISMINE campaign, which is a national advocacy initiative of, for and by children. It is a participatory children's advocacy initiative, launched in 2006 to keep our government accountable to fulfil the SDGs then called MDGs. The young people of NINEISMINE have actively undertaken and participated in various activities promoting child rights at the national and international level. NINEISMINE involved 1, 20,000 children in the UN My World Survey which led to the formation of the present Sustainable Development Goals. 

The initiative has received a Special Recognition Award from the UN Head Quarters in New York, for engaging children across the country in the formulation of the new Sustainable Development Goals.  Children are trained to use varied democratic processes like the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) report for India, the National General election Manifesto among various other initiatives. For more information please visit- https://pratyek.org.in/