Neighbourhood Community Network



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		Follow-up for Advocacy & Partnership: Building voice for children: An event which witnessed the child ministers of Erode district come together to discuss various issues pertaining to their day today life, find out solution and passed a charter of demands which was handed over to the district Mayor. Follow-up for Advocacy & Partnership: Building voice for Children was conducted in the Dindigul District. Around 400 child ministers & parliamentarians from five blocks of the district (Dindigul Municipality, Saanarpatty Block, Nilakkottai Block, Vedasandhur Block & Athur Block) had come to elect the ministers for the district level parliament. The guests of honour were Miss. Balabharathi, M.L.A, Mr. R. Kesavan, I.A.S, Mr.K. Arokiasamy, Sathian, Director of CFMSS and Issac, the convener for TNP-NCP Network. Follow-up for Advocacy & Partnership: Building voice for Children was conducted in the Kaniyakumari District. Around 139 child ministers were present. The main resource person was the local M.L.A-Mr.Jayapal, Justus, Edwin etc were present there. The children passed a charter of demands and the children handed over the resolution to Mr. Jeyabal, M.L.A. UN Civil Society Forum advocates promotion of Neighbourhod Parliaments of Children UN Civil Society Forum in its declaration, made to the Forty Eighth Session of the UN Commission for Social Development, entitled “Copenhagen+2: Achieving a society for all” has strongly advocated promotion of Neighbourhood Parliaments of Children. The Commission is at session from 3 to 12, February 2010 at UN Headquarters, New York. “Children’s’ parliaments” said the document, “begun in increasing number point to a bright future for communities committed to enhancing quality like for all.” The document singled out also the Neighbourhood Groups or Ayalkoottams of Kerela, India, as one of the best practices in the world for promoting social integration and inclusion. The focus theme this year was social integration and inclusion. Said the document: “Nearly 184,000 neighbourhod groups of women have been in operation giving those living in poverty an effective and on-going voice in the structure of their local society. Deciding together and working together for poverty eradication helped the women to transcend mindsets of untouchability that casteism represented.” Unlike the self groups elsewhere, Kerela’s ayalkkottams are territorially organized neighbourhood groups federated at the levels of village/area and at the level of the panchayat. Edwin M. John of Neighbourhood Community, India, made a presentation at the general session of the UN Civil Society Forum the concept and achievements of neighbourhood parliaments of children and similar neighbourhood based movements. Neighbourhood Parliaments of Children, said Edwin, help children to “discuss together, learn together, work together, and eventually emerge as confident and mature personalities, conscious, assertive citizens, articulate communicators, disciplined team workers and effective leaders.” Edwin referred to the global UNICEF-San Marino Award-2009 for the best child-led organization for child rights action, bagged by the Tamilnadu-Pondicherry State Parliament of Children, and informed that the India’s National Parliament of Children is slated to be held in August 2010 in New Delhi. He sought the cooperation of UN Civil Society Forum to help organize the world parliament of children the sooner. International Association of Schools of Social Work, International Presentation Association and a few advocacy organizations accredited by UN in a special statement submitted for consideration of the governments of the world, too, called for bringing down forums for political,social,and economic decision-making down to the grassroots level by means of territorially inclusive neighbourhood forums. Says the statement: “It s imperative that such forums remain small-sized face-to-face communities at every level so that the small voices of the marginalized and the weak do not get drowned out or lost, and thus go unlistened to, or that people remaining in poverty remain without a voice.” Neighborhoodization is new word that is gaining more and more currency in UN circles to focus on the need for a globalization from below where the reins of control are to be in the hands of the people at the base.








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UN Civil Society Forum advocates promotion of Neighbourhod Parliaments of Children