Striving to provide education to underprivileged children
SHILLONG: Shishu Shiksha Ghar (SSG) Children’s Home of Learning has now blossomed into SPARK-Bringing Light to Lives to further expand its activities in working for the betterment of the underprivileged children especially the street children.
SPARK is a right based organization whose prime objective is towards ensuring rights of every child as per United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
SSG was formed in 2010 with the prime objective to address to the educational needs of the children in distressful situation. The organization has been running centres comprising of children of all categories such as rag pickers, domestic helps, street children and distressed and vulnerable children.
East Khasi Hills Deputy Commissioner Sanjay Goyal officially launched the re-christened NGO in the presence of district police chief M. Kharkrang during the function to observe the International Child Rights Day here on Wednesday.
“I am really happy to see an organization silently working for the interest of the underprivileged children. They are very few organizations who are working for the cause of the unfortunate children of the society,” Goyal said while addressing the gathering.
According to him, there are NGOs who are involved in working for the welfare of the children with some hidden agenda. “The presence of such NGOs is not a good trend,” Goyal said.
He lamented that very less people were actually concerned about the well being of the unprivileged children. “The children of the lesser gods are being exposed to various kinds of criminal activities since they have no one to look after and care for them,” the Deputy Commissioner said.
Goyal said that the increasing numbers such children are a result of broken families which is rampant in the modern society. “Sadly no one is ready to admit that the problem of broken families is a matter of concern,” he said.
Meanwhile, East Khasi Hills SP Kharkrang expressed concern that the number of crimes against children has been seeing an upward trend with each passing year.
In East Khasi Hills there were 75 registered cases of crime against children in 2013, he said, adding that a total of 60 cases of crime against children have been registered so far in 2014.
“Most of these cases are rape and molestation of minor children. We have cases of four-year-old girls being raped. This situation is not a pleasant one,” Kharkrang said.
Meanwhile, Superintendent of Police in charge CID Claudia Lyngwa lauded SSG for trying to address the issue of educational needs of the children in distressful situation. “Good education to the underprivileged children will help them become better citizens,” he said.
She, however, expressed disappointment that the juvenile’s home in the State did not have the facilities of providing basic education to the inmates.
Earlier, SPARK president Shima Modak said that the organization aims at to make education a reality for every child. “Initially, we had a total of 73 children attending schools in our different centres. Now, we have more than 350 children enrolled in the schools and showing utmost interest in learning and actively involving themselves in the various activities,” Modak who is also the administrative head and principal of SSG, said.