To ensure meaningful participation of children, ActionAid Bangladesh (AAB) forms a Child forum for children between the ages of 10 to 18 years old. By developing leadership quality among the members of the Child Forum, usually, AAB takes different steps for the improvement of the situation of child rights and child protection. Currently, there are around 158 child forums at 15 LRPs with members of 3277 children. Among them, 18 Child Forums are at LRP-50, Kolapara were around 450 children are actively working with AAB to bring change in the community.
The children are getting mentally disturbed as their school has been closed for a long time due to this coronavirus pandemic. But these children can engage in various child development activities and creative thinking as they lead their child forum that is supported by ActionAid Bangladesh which helps to keep the children normal so that the development is further expanded.
To boost up their enthusiasm and encourage them, recently a team from the Sponsorship Unit, AAB met with the members of five Child Forums on 4th March 2021. During the discussion with them, they shared about their awareness campaign on coronavirus and explored the educational curriculum via online and television at their community level. They also shared that they sit in a monthly meeting where they discuss issues such as good touch & bad touch, early marriage, eve-teasing, Covid-19, child protection, child rights, climate justice. They also sort out their community problems to contribute to the solutions to enhance their rights and protection.
“On this day, I and my friends get the opportunity to participate in a variety of sports and drawings and discussions about child rights and leadership, after a long time we have a lot of fun together. Today is a very significant day for me. I and all my friends have learned to play today and know that we need to be very focused and concentrated on every single activity in our life that will help us realize and achieve our future dreams”, said the child forum leader named Riamoni (16).
