Child Rights Education and Action Movement (CREAM), BREADS Bangalore’s flagship programme for promoting child rights in 10 districts in Karnataka, successfully completed the second phase (2016-2020) of its implementation. In consolidation of its activities and impact during the project period, three reports were brought out by BREADS: Programme Report, Impact Report and External Evaluation Report. A brief summary of the Programme Report is presented below.
The Programme Report documents the various activities conducted under CREAM II, its outreach, and achievements in all 10 districts: Bangalore Urban, Ramanagara, Mysuru, Chitradurga, Ballari, Bidar, Devadurga, Raichur, Yadgir and Kalaburagi. Geographically, CREAM II reached 1604 villages in 746 panchayats of 10 districts. The report presents CREAM’s success in training children as agents of change and activists of their rights through child rights education and the creation of platforms—child rights clubs (CRCs), and CRC networks at the district, regional and state levels. These networks initiated various child rights campaigns and advocacy for child-friendly policies with government and other stakeholders.
CREAM II trained more than 200,000 children, forming 765 new CRCs, strengthening 500 old CRCs, and organising 681 Makkala Grama Sabhas where children could influence decision-making processes and the State agenda for child rights. 38,000 adult stakeholders were trained on child rights, 300 SHGs were empowered, and resource materials for training children and adult groups were developed. This in turn, built consensus among various stakeholders on issues of child rights. The CRCs prevented 1413 cases of child labour and 699 child marriages in collaboration with teachers, CREAM staff, community leaders and CHILDLINE. CRCs significantly impacted children’s participation in education, re-enrolling dropouts and effecting noticeable changes with 13,358 instances of improvements in school facilities. Apart from these, 100 evening tuition centres in villages and urban slums reached out to more than 16,400 children.
Through the CREAM II programme, BREADS collaborated with government departments and other child protection agencies such as the UNICEF and KSCPCR on the issues of child rights.
