SHILLONG: The first State swearing ceremony of the Inclusive Children Parliament was held at Bethany Society in the city on Saturday.
Around 100 children from different Children Parliament across the State assembled to be selected as ministers and work on different sustainable development goals. The ministers were sworn in by Labour Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh.
The Children Parliament is not only an education process in its strict sense but also a children’s movement with deliberations, interventions and actions in a neighbourhood comprising 25-30 families.
All children between 6-18 years in these families are formed as a parliament irrespective of their caste, community, race, social and economical status or their educational or physical status. Every child in the particular neighbourhood is an equal member of the said parliament.
After an initial training, the children of each parliament elect their prime minister and other ministers like home, finance, education, health, medication, environment, law, child welfare, youth welfare, women welfare, elders care, communal harmony, prohibition, corruption concerns, peace building, communication, infrastructure, and public works and so on, as the need may be through sociocratical election process or a consent-based and objection less election process.
All the members are elected as ministers for various concerns and the members have to perform their responsibilities.
These parliaments are networked by representation at village, panchayat, block, district, state and national levels. Children Parliaments are highly effective and more successful in their fullness when organised at the neighbourhood level and not in institutions like schools and hostels.
Through the process of self-governance, children will be able to build basic human relationship, giving importance to human justice, forgiveness, tolerance and acceptance. They will also get to work on social issues like eradicating child labour, child abuse, child marriage and trafficking, and fighting against drug menace, among others.
