Our Approach
THE CHILD TRUST- with mission on realizing Child Rights and restoring Childhood-----------towards building resilient, collaborative and responsible society and state
The Child Trust-TCT is a non-governmental organization based in Delhi with operations spread its wings across 9 needy States in India, striving to work towards realizing all rights of children and restoring happy and healthy childhood through facilitating, supporting and implementing collective actions with multiple key actors.
Perspectives
The child’s trust constitutes the most primary component of human society - the foundation for future. Obviously, children are born with intuitive and implicit trust, aspiring that he or she would be provided a dignified life with all rights related to survival, protection, development and participation, in an environment free from all kinds of exploitation and abuse.
The very state of their well-being determines the future progress of society and contribute to the nation building. Considering this unstated trust of children on the society and state, -the social, political and economic institutions have morally/legally binding mandate to work towards honouring the implicit trust without breaking promises and need to keep a quality of life, environment, resources intact for upholding the inter generational rights of children, humanity and planet as a whole.
Nevertheless, historically, children are always deprived of their natural rights as they are vulnerable, dependent, innocent and untrained/ ill-equipped to represent themselves very effectively as they are in observing, acquiring, growing and learning stage.
Children are fullest and absolute human beings with distinct identity and bearers of all rights. They are born free, equal in dignity and in realizing rights as well, with all other human beings. Since, they are vulnerable and they are not able to effectively control matters that affect them and issues that impinge on them, that mostly due to age-binary, physical as well as psychological development.
Adults, society, and state should create enabling environment to fulfil, respect and realize the rights of children as they are non-negotiable ones without any compromises or reservations. As Geneva Declaration highlights “humanity has to do its best for the child”. The Child Trust Organization is intending to achieve in all its interventions/ actions immediate, perceptible and lasting change in the lives of children.
Children are the human being and the bearer of human rights. As human rights, children’s rights are constituted by fundamental guarantees and essential human rights- national and international standards and obligations. As child has no means to protect himself or herself, Children’s rights are human rights specifically adapted to the child because they consider his/her fragility, specificities and age-appropriate needs. Children’s rights consider the necessity for the development of the child. The children thus have the right to live and to develop suitably physically and intellectually.
Children’s rights consider the vulnerable character of the child. They imply the necessity to protect them. It means to grant an assistance to them, and to give a protection adapted to their age and to their degree of maturity. So, the children must be helped and supported and must be protected against labour exploitation, kidnapping, and ill-treatment, etc.
Children have the right to a caring family, to develop their full potential, to a name, nationality and identity. They have right to be informed and to express their opinions and to be heard in all the matters of life. Children have the right to adequate food, right to Education and play and to be protected from all forms of violence and exploitation to social security.
TCT has located child rights both individually and collectively while looking at its “universal, indivisible, interdependent, interrelated, inalienable, inclusive” nature and they are upheld by the rule of law and strengthened through legitimate claims from duty-bearers as they to be accountable to national and international standards. Thus, Children are RIGHTS HOLDERS and adults, society and State are DUTY BEARERS to protect and promote child rights. There is the need to create empowering and enabling environment to protect child rights by proactively taking responsibility by the parents, society and state actors to ensure happy and healthy childhood.
Child Rights and Communities- intrinsic relationship
TCT has also been locating child rights not in isolation but intrinsically linked with manifestations and root causes of issues both structural and systemic issues which have a bearing on and basically responsible for perpetuating abject poverty and deprivation of the basic resources for a vast number of communities in the society and in turn leading to depriving of “all child rights for all” vulnerable and marginalized children. The families are not able to protect and promote the rights of children, though they aspire to overcome and offer protective environment for children. This is primarily due to the reasons causing mostly lack of access to resources and services- entitlements such as land, food security, water, work, living wages, and deteriorating livelihood choices in the rural/urban areas. Most often parents-specifically women- disempowered to protect their children’s rights due to their appalling living and working conditions, lack of resources and circumstances beyond their control. They also realized that if communities are empowered with critical awareness / information and with access to resources, food security and productive income, in turn they would adequately be empowered/ enabled to provide protective environment in which child’s malnutrition, hunger and food insecurity are effectively addressed and redressed. Hence society and state have moral and legal responsibility to ensure this enabling environment and all actors should collectively work towards achieving that.
Child-friendly society is urgently warranted
The society needs to recognize, respect, do necessary what they can do to realize child rights, to protect and promote those rights. Instead of accepting the deplorable status of children silently, society at times also agitated or disturbed to see the multiple forms of vulnerabilities, horrendous forms of violations, discriminations and deprivations. However, the society should voice out earnestly to expose the current stark realities and contribute to break the status quo and engage in transformative actions.
The general society is also preoccupied with more questions, justifications, reasons and reservations for not able to do adequate to uphold the rights of children, but it has potential to find out lasting solutions within: Abject poverty, budgetary constraints, population explosion, unemployment, lack of productive resources, deteriorating economy, lack of political will are some of the defences they have but these can be challenged and changed by the society.