Children’s Club, to make positive difference in community

Kabita Devkota, Treasurer of the New Horizon Children’s Club (NHCC), has been the busiest girl in village. Studying in grade 9 at Nilakantha Model Secondary School, wakes up early as she needs to help her parents cooking food and for other household works. Apart from her home works, she has big responsibility of running her children’s club. She was a shy girl up to last year but now she has been one of the active leaders in her team and in school. She is a dancer as well, who has learnt the ancient dance called Balan and some modern dance also. Children’s club has built her confidence and capacity. Another girl Chameli lives with her married sister as her brother-in-law is in Malaysia for employment. She needs to help her sister doing all the works in home, attending school classes and providing time for Children’s Club. Ramchandra, studying at Grade 10 and the President of the Club is now advocating for the Child Rights and other issues regarding children and is a good actor in street dramas. Through this club, children are supporting the organisations and other groups in the community to ensure their welfare. Within one year of their establishment, NHCC has been more effective and more powerful than any Women’s Group and consumer club of their area. Highly inspired and self-motivated children around 200 from more than 7 villages are trying to establish themselves as an ideal child club in the country. They have started child initiatives as they think they are “Children to make difference”. Through this type of Child Club, children can develop their skills and capacity as well as they can develop the feeling of responsibility and belongingness among the children for their family, community and country.

by Kishan Devkota

Ganesh-Himal and NHCC, together for a mission

It has been a perfect coordination between the children of remote Nepal (Rasuwa) and the overseas Youths. Ganesh-Hiamal.be ASBL, an organisation registered in Belgium has started its charity work in Rasuwa. With the motive of promoting rural eco-tourism to improve the living standard of the disadvantaged, poor and marginalised group of remote Rasuwa, Dhading, Nuwakot and Sindhupalchok (in and around the Ganesh-Langtang region of central Nepal), highly motivated and energetic youths from Belgium formed a charity called Ganesh-Himal.be ASBL and started their mission with the children’s club (New Horizon Children’s Club, NHCC) of Rasuwa. NHCC with the support of Ganesh-Himal.be ASBL, is establishing a cultural centre and small child library. Cultural centre will have traditional and some modern costumes and musical instruments so that children can learn ancient culture to prevent their cultural identity and practice some modern culture as well. This cultural identity will be an attraction for the tourists and we are hoping it to promote rural village tourism. Through cultural programmes, NHCC organises various awareness activities to make village people aware of the many contemporary issues like Girls’ Trafficking, Cultural Superstitions, importance of health, hygiene and sanitation and so on. Child library will provide extra learning opportunities to the children of village who simply have one course book to go through, throughout the year. Books of child literature, Science, History, Geography, General I.Q., Atlases, child magazine and newspapers, etc. will be in library. For the library, only basic furniture have been organised, but in near future, NHCC wishes to fill the cupboard with the variety of books to strengthen children’s reading skills and to widen their knowledge. NHCC wants to make a docu drama to tackle the Girls’ Trafficking problem and is seeking for the support. Ganesh-Himal.be ASBL has been the source of inspiration and first supporter for this club and has been a best partner. Now the village covering NHCC members have been a little bit child-centered villages. We are proud to say that NHCC has been more effective and more powerful than any Women’s Group and consumer club of their area.

by Kishan Devkota (ECWZ Nepal)