“Child Marriage is one of the major issue of my ward that is critical to betterment of the children especially girls. But a lot have been done to overcome this and after serious interventions and campaign, we have been able to declare our Ward as Child Friendly Ward.” says Diksha BK, 17 years old. resident of Gramthan RM Ward 1, Lakhantari. There are altogether 7 members including grandmother, mom, dad, elder sister and younger brother. Her father is abroad whereas her mom works in a factory and grandmother helps in household works. She and her sister is studying in class 11 and brother is in school.

Gramthan Ward 1 is mostly inhibited by Tharu Community, Daluts and Indigenous communities. Child Marriage was then common phenomenon till 2018/19 as there was lack of awareness and the loos monitoring mechanism by the Ward authorities and no proper plan was put in place to address this. Since 2018, Nari Bikash Snagh in Partnership of World Vision have been implementing Protection Technical Project in the Wards, The first step of the project was the formation of the Child Rights Committees and building their capacity through different training and workshop. The monitoring structures were put in place and the daily update of the cases was done. Diksha is also the member of the CRC and she further adds” In the beginning we faced a lot of stiffness in the community as people ridiculed me saying that I am children and why should they listen to me . But the continuous support of other CRC member the community started taking me seriously and now I am free in the community. We have conducted several rallies, door to door campaign especially for the seeking support on the ending of the Child Marriage and other forms of Violence on the children. “

“As said Children are the future of Tomorrow, we had initial putt our vision forward that if we engage the children more only then the outcome will be favorable to us. We have extensively worked hard as we have been successfully in putting in place the monitoring work of the child violence as well as the necessary Policies have been drafted . As a result of which our Ward have been declared as Child Friendly Ward. Most of the credit goes to the young activists like Dikshya . She has bene tirelessly working since day 1. Through her child club we could engage the girls and persuade them to not get involved in the child marriages, as children tends to listen to people of their age group. Says Namo Narayan Majhi, Ward Chair Person and Chair Person of CRC, Gramthan Ward 1.

“As we know that these days, mostly the teenagers are getting involved in negative things like drug addiction, child marriage, abuse hence I want to raise awareness on child protection issues in my society. I got opportunity to become the member of CRC and RUPATARAN club, it is a good platform where peers can expose their capacities, learn good things. There altogether 15 subjects in RUPATARAN session which helped me and my peers to bring positive change within.  Our parents are glad to see these changes in us and the works that we are doing in the community. But as said the work is only half dine with declaration and we are continuously working for the upholding of the Child Friendly status in coming days: mentions Diksha BK