Tag Archives: children

The United Nations calls child marriage a ‘violation’. Yet, despite its near total worldwide illegality, it continues to thrive in many areas of the developing world, writes Kevin Childs | New Internationalist Recently, an interesting hashtag has been trending on Twitter. #TheStrengthToSayNo campaign is a joint initiative between Penguin Books and BetterIndia.com, and is inspired by the life story of ...

[By Mari Marcel Thekaekara|New Internationalist] I always associated cotton picking with songs from the American deep-south. It conjured up visions of poor people, mostly African Americans. We associated cotton picking with southern slavery in America. Never with India. Inexplicably, given I have clear memories of detailed geography lessons about India’s agricultural patterns and cotton-growing states. My lack of awareness on ...

“He really believes he is the Whisperer,” Lisa Sun says of her son, Benjamin. The seven-year-old used to be afraid to speak up. Now, “he is much braver and compassionate”, she says, adding that he “insists on helping with housework”. How did mild-mannered Benjamin become one of Singapore’s best-dressed superheroes? He and his classmates at a kindergarten were given a ...

Yans Ganghadaran wanted to help a community near her home in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. So she offered some literacy lessons.  In no time, there were 50 kids were “clambering on my door”, she says.  Find out how you can help – including read to these kids on Skype, and give them their Right to Learn. Divyaa was struggling in school. Coming ...

[By Mari Marcel Thekaekara | New Internationalist] Some unbelievable news just broke. Move over, Jamie Oliver: school nutrition has taken a leap forward in India, at least on paper. India’s middle-class urban kids are more obese than they have ever been. It is worrisome, given the high incidence of diabetes among Indian adults in the last few decades. This obesity ...

It might be one of the most unique covers of a Green Day hit you’ll ever hear: young, at-risk girls from an Indian shelter singing Boulevard of Broken Dreams. “Many of these children have been abused or have suffered trauma. Music helps to engage them, it helps them to relax,” Faith Gonsalves, the founder of Music Basti, says. Volunteers from the non-profit ...

Shweta Chari was having dinner with friends in 2004 when she shared an idea to create a place where children could play. Sharing that many children are forced to be labourers at an early age, sometimes in dangerous industries such as firecrackers, the electronics engineer wanted to help them regain their childhood. “Simple toys can make them children again,” says ...

|Our Better World| Surrounded by poverty, a group of engineering students in Mumbai decide to meet a few of the thousands of street children in their city, to learn about their lives and hear their stories. They came across Salaam Baalak Trust, which helps street children with food, shelter, education and also offers friendship and a sense of belonging.

|By Sanjay Pandey| As soon as the five-day campaign against Maoists demanding child recruits came to an end in Gumla, the Ultra-lefts stepped up their activities in primitive tribes’ residential schools with near-impunity as if they were waiting for the police formalities to get over in the Naxal-affected district. The rebels have threatened the teachers and the kids alike with ...

|By Riti Sinha| When the child cries, a mother feeds it milk. But this is not the case in the tribal areas of Andhra Pradesh. Here, when the child cries, all the other does is stick a bottle of locally brewed spurious liquor into its mouth. Macherla village is one of the many villages in the Mahbubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh where ...