India Post News Service
PALO ALTO, California: Child Rights & You America (CRY America), a 501c3 non-profit that works towards ensuring underprivileged children their basic rights, hosted their Annual Gala Dinner in Bay Area to bring people together for the cause of children’s rights.
This year, the CRY Gala Dinner was organized in the Bay Area May 4 at the Crowne Plaza, Palo Alto. Speakers included celebrity guest Konkona Sen Sharma who joined CRY America to amplify the voices of underprivileged children, Shefali Sunderlal, President of CRY America, and Sachin Jain, who has established Vikas Samvad Samiti in Madhya Pradesh to give a new shape to media advocacy on CRY issues. The Bay area gala raised over $150,000, which will help in the process of raising a happy, healthy and creative child whose rights are protected and honored in a society that is built on respect for dignity, justice and equity for all.
India, with about 444 million children, has the world’s largest child population with every sixth child in the world referring to India as home. Although children constitute over a third of India’s population, their interests are not a top priority and their rights are violated every day. While India has made great progress economically in the last decade, its children continue to battle violations of their rights every day. Millions of children are denied their rights to education, healthcare and forced into child labor, child marriage and abuse. CRY America works with grass-root projects, communities and local government authorities to ensure children have quality education, healthcare, and protection from child labor, child marriage and issues which hinder their development.
Based in Madhya Pradesh, a large state in central India with a population of more than 75 million, Vikas Samvad Samiti (VSS) is a resource organization that partnered with CRY since 2007. The health indicators of children in India are among the worst in the world – only around half (54 per cent) of the infants in India are fully immunized. More than half the births in the country continue to remain home-births. Three out of five children are malnourished (National Family Health Survey) in India. VSS started project implementation work in 10 villages of Pohari block of Shivpuri district in April 2017 considering the critical health and nutrition issues among children of the Saharia tribal community. The health status of the people of this community is extremely poor due to malnutrition, lack of proper hygiene and illiteracy. Conducting regular growth monitoring of children identified as malnourished, facilitating “Nutri Corner” at Anganwadi centers of five villages i.e. Nonheta Khurd, Jakhnod, Sonipura, Gwalipura and Machakhurd, conducting sensitization sessions with pregnant and lactating mothers and families, and conducting training on sustainable and site appropriate agriculture were a few of the project implementation steps followed by VKS. Seed banks were started at two villages by core group members and other livelihood options like breeding of Kadaknath chicken with the help of animal husbandry department were also explored by the group.
CRY America is a Platinum-level GuideStar Exchange participant, demonstrating its commitment to transparency. With the support of over 25,153 generous donors and 2,000 committed volunteers, CRY America has impacted the lives of 695,077 children living across 3,676 villages and slums through support to 73 Projects in India and the US.
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