School Children
Carrying One’s Own Agenda

By Prakash Dahal

NOT all fighters carry their own agenda. In our case, we tend to swell up in pride carrying others’ agenda. And, we do so quite zealously because we see a fairly good chance of churning out personal benefits from them. The NGOs and even GOs are no exception. They toe the line which others carve for them. Others hang catchy slogans in their tongue tips, and they blare them every now and then in one or the other sponsored conferences.

Meets

In conferences and seminars held to discuss children, the western world trained Phds and the recognised authorities are found portraying the pathetic plight of children in this way, " You see, in Rio de Janeiro, I saw children scavenging tissue papers from the filthy garbage. And you know what they did with that? They dipped them in water and ate it for supper because they had nothing to eat".

Great! The Phds. and the recognized authorities in suit and necktie have their nose in air having said so. Because, they are not talking about the stinking Khates of Durbar Marg or Pashupatinath who are scavenging food through filthy green containers or the heap of garbage that the municipality has left on the roadside to decay. But, they are talking about the children of Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro while discussing children issues in some or the other posh hotel auditorium in Kathmandu.

They are not fools! They know that they will look stupid talking about Kathmandu’s street children because every Tom, Dick and Harry has seen them. But, not everyone has been to Brazil , hence, talking about them would give them an air of superiority, at least in this country.

A painful reality of how we perceive things, we live by it.

The lacuna in development; resources dry away in Kathmandu while men and women in the western hills live with parched lips and hungry bellies; is perhaps due these foreign agenda carrying Phds. and authorities.

Why should the man in tie suit speak up for scavengers? Why should the wife of politicians in silk saris deliver speech and present papers in the star hotel auditoriums on the status of rural women? Why should the urban women rolling around in limousine fly across the ocean to attend seminar and conferences on women with disabilities? Why should those with beautiful eyes sign agreements with donors for BVIs ( Blind and Visually Impaired)?

Why not the BVIs speak up for themselves? Why not the women from Ghalekharka, and Bhalche come forward with their agenda and the women in silk saris rally behind them? Why not the women with disabilities parade to the National Planning Commission and put their demands aggressively?

To answer this ‘why’, it may be difficult for many of us.

But, it’s not for children. Because, the innocent children have no idea of carrying anyone’s agenda. Their experienced parents are there to do the job. Therefore, they can speak up for themselves and their fellow children. And, they have done so.

Few high school students in their teens organised themselves under what they call Students’ Awareness Society to help their fellow kids in the streets. And to grease the wheels of their tiny institution, they took up the job of publishing a bi-lingual magazine in which they chose to portray the actual plight of the orphan and abandoned children with a tinge of emotion, struggling in the hostile and dark alleys of Kathmandu. And, they did it. They are neither the first nor the last ones to do so. Hundreds of NGOs have done similar jobs. These days, one can see dozens of developmental publications sprouting on donors’ funding, displayed on the shelves of NGOs, INGOs and Kathmandu’s book stores. But the children are different. They are different at least in two ways; They know no donors; they didn’t carry anyone’s agenda but their own.

Says Caesar Rana, editor," We want to gain confidence that we too are capable of doing things on our own". Caesar Rana and Ashray Malla, editors duo, the teenage school-goers say, they wanted to raise fund to help their fellow children who have become the victims of the conspiracy of circumstances. With this mission in mind, the boys came up with a 36 pages magazine "Environment and Street Children".

The magazine is kind of a research work, exploring the pains and the sufferings of the children who live by begging, scavenging scraps of food in the disposed garbage on the road side. The boys have talked to these street children and they have narrated the story as it has been told to them.

What may be distinct in the research works of these school-going children is that they neither possess any research background nor have they been trained.

Their presentation is crude and therefore natural. For these boys, the job was never easy. Because, the street children they wanted to talk to were reluctant to answer any of their questions. And, the methodology they applied to extract information may remain quite interesting for professionals.

Nevertheless, they have done the job. They have spoken up for their fellow kids. Both the form and the content of their publication stand good by Nepalese standard.

Insight

The book is full of case studies which give an insight into how the children descend down from the hills and disappear in a world made of Kathmandu’s dark and dingy alleys.

Caesar Rana and Ashray Malla have done it. And, they have done it sans donors’ funding, carrying no one’s but their own agenda.

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