MANGALDAI, June 12 - Bringing a ray of hope for the thousands of children in distress, the Childline Foundation of India, a national 24 hour free emergency telephone and outreach service for children is going to expand its service to 14 districts of Assam, including Darrang in the financial year 2019-20.
As a part of this new initiative, the District Child Protection Unit (DCPU), Darrang organised a meeting of the stakeholding government agencies and selected local NGOs here at the conference hall of the Deputy Commissioner, Darrang on Wednesday. Participating in the meeting as the chief speaker Debnath Ghosh, senior coordinator, Regional Resource Centre, Childline, Kolkata displayed a detailed power point presentation on the functions of the Childline, a nodal agency under the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India with the centrally-controlled toll free number 1098, its vision, the mechanism of child protection, its outreach network across the country, its partner NGOs and challenges of the service among others.
Explaining about their proposer expansion network in the State of Assam, Ghosh said, �Our outreach service has already covered more than 500 locations across India with more than 700 partners. However, we are targeting to cover the whole India by the year 2023 and for which in this current year we are expanding our service to 14 new districts of Assam.� The Childline is already functioning in 13 locations including the railways under 12 different districts of the State.
The Childline office bearer also replied to the queries raised by the participants. Addressing the meeting from the chair Kulen Sarma, Additional Deputy Commissioner, Darrang welcomed the decision of the Child Development Ministry for choosing Darrang among the 14 new districts for expansion of their service in this year and assured all sort of support from the district administration in promotion of the much-needed child project in the district. The meeting was attended by representatives of the different stakeholding agencies including Child Welfare Committee, Juvenile Justice Board, Inspector of Schools, Health Department and Samagra Siksha Abhiyan among others. Assistant Commissioner Monika Borgohain and Deputy Superintendent of Police (Head Quarter) Mamoni Hazarika also attended the meeting. Earlier, Dulal Deka, social worker of the DCPU narrated the purpose of the meeting.
