Hyderabad, August 31: The day belonged to slum children as around 1,500 of them celebrated by participating in various competitions held for them. The event named ‘Bala Utsav-2009’ which was conducted by the Care Foundation for Children and Ageing (CFCA) at All Saints High School Grounds in Abids also saw the parents cheering their children on. These children from Hyderabad’s biggest slums like Addagutta, Rasoolpura and Balaji Nagar were once child labourers or potential ones who are now going to formal schools with the support of the CFCA.
Chief guest of the function, S Chellappa, Principal Secretary, Culture, stated that the Indian Government had recently passed a law making education a fundamental right.
“This law should not just be confined to paper and we have to find means and ways to implement it. There are lot of things to do in this regard and hence everyone should join hands,” he said.
Chellappa lauded the CFCA for its work and said, “The foundation takes care of stepchildren from the age of 6 years till the college level. This sort of long term support will really helps.” S Suresh Reddy, executive director, CFCA, Hyderabad added, “This is a people’s participatory programme where all the mothers of the sponsored children are involved and run the programme. We have 10,000 women as members in 600 Self-Help Groups who not only organise saving and income generation programmes but also organise and monitor the CFCA child sponsorship programme.”
–Agencies–