TThe CRC Project was started for Strengthening Child Rights and Improving Education to prevent child labour in 100 revenue villages of two blocks viz., Bagidora and Gangad Talai, in Banswara district in February 2014 with the following goals:

• Increased protection against child abuse and violation.
• Improve quality of education.
• Enhancing access to social protection schemes for improved income.

The project has been implemented in collaboration with concerned government departments and programmes. The project had planned to reach out 23473 households[ HHs Survey (CULP & Save the Children, 2014)] and a population of 74687 persons in 100 project villages of two blocks till March 2017.

The activities conducted had been

• Household surveys of families in villages for identification of target population of children, status of various development indicators and compliance of various government schemes
• formation and strengthening village level Child Protection Committees (CPCs) in 100 villages
• Formation of Gram Panchayat level CPCs in Gram Panchayats and block level CPCs
• Identification of eligible poor families linked with various social protection schemes such as Palanhar, widow pension and old age pension for improving the economic status of the families, so that they can send their children in school
• Trained village level young volunteers to support project interventions and crate ownership among the local community
• Ensuring students active participation in school management and hearing their voices about their rights through children’s groups in villages.

Skills Trainings for employability

One month skill training courses in various trades were organized with the technical support from Ajeevika Bureau for enhancing employability opportunities for 99 tribal youth (Handpump Mistri = 19; Electrician, motor-cycle repairing = 21; eletric motor repairing = 13; sewing = 6; house-electric wiring = 3; job readiness skills = 18, mobile phone reparing = 7 & others = 12) in the area.

Reducing Migration & vulnerability

The camps for migrating labour were organized for their legal education and registration for their legal entitlements at Gram Panchayat level. During the reporting period, such 5 camps were organized for more than one thousand labour and 2997 migrating labourers got registration and Identity cards.

The top-line indicators of the project were set-up during the beginning of the project after analyzing the household survey in August 2014. The project has reached out 93% population of the planned target in 100 percent project villages. Out of this, 61% are children (0 to 18 years.

A Mid-Term Review (MTR) of the Project was conducted by an expert in September 2016.

The key observations summarized by the expert are as follows:

• Progress on 12 out of 15 top-line indicators is good. Therefore, a few indicators related to functioning of various village level groups, the functionality has been achieved in most villages.
• The targets for three top-line indicators need to adjust due to emergent contingencies and excessive rains that are going to enhance migration and reduce local employability.
• All children in project village will possess birth certificates / Aadhar Cards (restrict to all newborns during the project period)
• 80% of Anganwadi children transiting to primary education (stress on cognitive learning and re-adjust the target to 50%)
• Bringing child migration prevention level to 75% (readjust the level to 60% due to excessive rain and loss in local employability).

The report also highlights the following best practices

• Bal SurakshaPeti: It is a box made available for children to write their grievances, concerns or about any other problems they are facing in community, family, school etc. The community has contributed money for the box and members of CPC opens it periodically to take steps to address those issues.
• Election of duty bearers of CPCs: This is an innovative approach towards raising the voice of children and providing them the rights to take decision in their interest under which children in several villages elected the duty bearers of CPC through a process of election using ballot paper. The candidates filed nomination in the sitting of Gram Sabha, were given election symbol, and got chance for campaign and finally children voted for election of duty bearers.
• Child labour free villages: The project is progressing towards making child labour villages where all the children have been enrolled and those who were working or migrating have been removed from labor and/or prevented from migration. The CPCs of few villages claim that there is no child labour in their village. In some villages, community-based norms are also adopted by community to abstain from engaging their children in labor.

Bachpan Calendar: This Calendar is tool for holding discussion of CPC and CGs. It has listed topics of discussion relevant to the local context and needs, For example, in the month when marriages take place, Child Marriage is one topic of discussion based on which members of CPC make interventions in the village.