Karthik's children's manifest

Karthik studies computer science and works a few days a week in marketing. In his free time he acts in a theatre group. Karthik has always been involved with children and their rights. He has done voluntary work for various organisations that advocate children’s rights. Together with friends and other volunteers, he still leads a Children Education Centre (CEC) in the neighbourhood. According to Karthik, local Indian political parties are not involved enough with children, their needs and their rights. Together with KidsRights he wants to bring a change. What is the problem? Political parties in Karthik’s neighbourhood do not respect children’s rights. The needs of children are not taken into consideration and hardly any money is made available for this. The rights of children are just ignored. The right to education, for example, is only applicable to children up to and including 14 years old and child labour is allowed after this age. Karthik wants to increase the age to this right to 18 years old. What is Karthik’s solution? Karthik is going to gather 20 active and concerned children and youth in one group. Together they will make sure that the age is increased from 14 to 18 years old. The group will do this by presenting a manifest to local political parties. A manifest is a document containing a summary of clear statements which everyone can read. This manifest will be drawn up by a group of 20 children and youth. The themes child labour and education will be the key elements. Just before the elections, the youth group will meet the political parties to present the manifest personally. What is his goal? His goal will be achieved when Karthik’s community treats children with respect and political parties take children’s rights seriously. How does Karthik work? Karthik will coordinate and execute the project himself. He expects that it will be a challenge to reach the political parties before the elections. The parties will of course be busy with their campaigns. Together with the other youth he wants to plan an appropriate strategy for this. What does Karthik need? Advice from KidsRights Information on projects like his. Who does he need? Motivated children and youth who want to work with him on the manifest. Volunteers A local Indian organisation that will help him.