Forging a path for youth engagement
What role did young people play in promoting child-friendly local governance in Saptari’s Kanchanrup Municipality?
Saptari, Nepal: Nisha Timsina from Kanchanrup Municipality in Saptari District recalls a time when she felt extremely helpless. “I often heard about incidents of violence and sexual abuse of children, mainly girls,” she says. “Even though these reports shook me, I didn’t think there was anything I could do.”
In 2013, however, Nisha heard about a local child club through her school and made up her mind to join. Being part of the group made her feel more confident and more willing to speak up about the injustices she saw around her. Suddenly, she saw that she didn’t have to sit by passively while children’s rights were violated.
“We were lucky to have the support of our mayor and other authorities,” she says. “They worked with us on a lot of campaigns – whether related to promoting school enrolment, ending practices like child labour and child marriage, and ensuring all newborns are registered and vaccinated."
"We were able to cover a lot of ground that way.”
It wasn’t all smooth sailing, however. Pintu Sada, another child club graduate, says changing people’s attitudes was very difficult when they first started their campaigns. “There were families that had sent their children to work because they simply did not have enough money to survive,” he says. “We informed the municipal leaders, who visited these families, talked to them, and provided them the necessary support – like food or school stationery – which convinced them to send their children to school.”
“The role of the ward chairs was crucial in helping us engage with the community and getting them to understand where we were coming from," he says.
"I’m happy to say they’ve become strong supporters now."
It was thanks to these continuous and collaborative efforts on the part of young people like Nisha and Pintu and government representatives that on 6 September 2019, Kanchanrup was declared a Child-Friendly Local Governance (CFLG) municipality. With this, it became the first ever municipality in the province and the third in the country to receive such a distinction.
Present day child club members now speak of graduates like Nisha with awe.
“They showed us the path,” one of them says.
