Rajouri administration, in partnership with NDF and UNICEF, held a training on the Mission Vatsalya manual. Officials emphasized strengthening child protection mechanisms, education, and civil society involvement to ensure children’s rights.
Rajouri Administration Focuses on Child Protection
Rajouri Deputy Commissioner Devansh Yadav has called for greater civil society participation to strengthen the district’s child protection mechanism under Mission Vatsalya. He was speaking at a one-day training programme organised by the District Administration Rajouri in collaboration with the National Development Foundation, Jammu, and UNICEF India on the Mission Vatsalya Manual for the three-tier child protection mechanism.
Around 120 stakeholders from police, education, labour, rural development, health, social welfare, Mission Vatsalya and civil society participated in the programme. Rajiv Kumar Khajuria, Honorary Patron, National Development Foundation, was the keynote speaker. He sensitised participants about the three-tier community-based child protection mechanism, child rights under the Constitution of India and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). He urged the administration to reconstitute and activate Village- and Block-level Child Welfare and Protection Committees as per the Mission Vatsalya Manual.
In his presidential address, Devansh Yadav emphasised strengthening child protection and education in the district. He highlighted initiatives including smart classrooms and modern Anganwadi centres. The District Magistrate directed the District Child Protection Unit to undertake awareness activities at the village level and ensure children’s rights to survival, development, protection and participation. He also directed the District Child Protection Officer to assess the requirement for Child Care Institutions (CCIs) in the district. Yadav appreciated the efforts of the National Development Foundation and asked the organisation to focus its activities in Rajouri for the overall welfare of children and families.
Speaking to ANI, Devansh Yadav said, ” Awareness is being provided regarding the Juvenile Justice Act, Child Welfare Committees, and various government guidelines and laws concerning children. People from different departments have also attended. It is a good thing that civil society was also present here, and emphasis was placed on how these messages reach children and their parents; in this, we are going to make some of our children ambassadors in the coming days who will spread this awareness to children and their parents. Along with this, the education sector was also discussed, because NDF (National Development Foundation) is our Rajouri-based NGO.”
Highlighting the future efforts for the education sector, he added, “BSNL network towers have reached remote areas. And we have requirements for these mobile towers in some more places, which we are going to set up. Once this network connectivity is complete, we are going to implement the smart classroom model, which has been very successful. This will also address teacher shortages there and provide children with a good learning environment. Another angle is that the level of education in all our Anganwadis under the New Education Policy is not reaching that desired level.”
He called for curbing child marriage, emphasising that the age limit for marriage is already prescribed by law. “Now society also needs to understand and adopt it. Already, due to education, this has been checked to a large extent, and in the coming days, our effort will be that if there are any further violations, strict action should be taken against them. Because if we have to save the lives of all our girl children and give them opportunities in their careers and life, child marriage must not be allowed to happen under any circumstances,” he said.
Rajiv Kumar Khajuria spoke about how there was training for different stakeholder departments, including Social Welfare, Vatsalya, Police, Labour, Education—whichever respective departments deal with children. “We developed trainers, you could call it a Training of Trainers (ToT). There were two sessions in the morning, followed by a special session joined by DC Sahib and members of civil society, and everyone took a pledge regarding child protection,” he said.
Sanjeev Kumar Mangu, former two-term Sarpanch of Panchayat Halqa Sagote in Block Dhangri, Rajouri district said, “This program was organized for children’s welfare by Rajiv Khajuria ji’s NGO, the National Development Foundation, concerning child abuse and the welfare of girl children. For instance, as we see in big cities, children picking up bags of garbage, taking out food from the garbage and eating it—how those children can be brought to a good place, how they can be educated, and what can be done for their welfare—this session went on from morning till evening.”