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Minors take up cudgels to rid their locality of myriad evils

By MANASH PRATIM DUTTA

GUWAHATI, Sept 5 - A group of children of Adinggiri, Maligaon, has taken up the cudgels to fight against the social evils that plague their locality.

For the purpose the group, with members aged between 10 and 18 years and backed by World Vision India, had formed the Adinggiri Grabil Children Club in 2016. The club has about 150 children as members.

Adinggiri area, located in the western part of Guwahati city, is plagued by multiple social evils like substance abuse, school dropout, poverty, etc. Not too long back a case of child marriage was also reported from the area.

Under such an adverse condition, the children�s club takes some unique steps like �charity bazaar� to help their friends in need. The enlightened children of the club want that in future everyone could become a good human resource for the country.

Elaborating on their initiative, president of the club Ripti Marak said, �As part our initiative, to help the needy children of our area we have started the charity bazaar. Our next step will be to eliminate school dropout cases from Adinggiri.�

According to Ripti, who is a student of Class X, about 10 children of Adinggiri left school recently only because their parents were reluctant to bear their educational expenses due to financial crisis.

�Very soon we will start visiting houses of those families and will motivate them to send their children to school. We will also encourage the school dropout children to continue with their studies,� Ripti said.

Rohan Marak, treasurer of the club and a student of Class VIII, said, �Our journey started from the Adinggiri High School in 2016. At that time, the condition of our society was pathetic. Now of course, it has improved considerably. But still there is much more to do for our people. Now our aim is to help the poor section of our locality.�

According to Rohan, earlier lack of proper infrastructure of the Adinggiri High School was also a reason behind the school dropout cases. Now the school has developed a lot. But cases of school dropout have not stopped on expected lines because of poverty in many families.

�Due to financial crisis at home, many children choose to leave school and start earning. Their parents too are not aware of the value of education. Finally most of these children become victims of substance abuse,� Rohan added.

Elaborating on the birth of the charity bazaar, Ripti said, �A few months ago one of our friends was suffering from some disease. He did not get proper medical treatment because of superstitious beliefs of his family. During his illness we initiated the charity bazaar and with the earning accruing from it we provided him some food. But unfortunately he passed away. In the same way we also helped a girl of our locality who was suffering from TB. Now we are thinking of continuing with the initiative.�

Recently the club organised a charity bazaar on the premises of Adinggiri High School where they sold items taken from home like vegetables, chowmein, bread toast, etc., and earned more than Rs 1,000.

�Recently a family in our locality lost all their belongings, including all the textbooks of their four children, in an accidental fire. The family is now not in a position to buy textbooks, which means the education of the four children faces the threat of being discontinued. So with this money we will buy textbooks for them,� Ripti said.

She asserted that the club members have been planning to continue with the charity bazaar on every holiday in coming days.

�We will also work to stop child sexual abuse. For this a number of awareness camps will be held in our area in the coming days. Our locality is quite backward even though we reside in the heart of a city. So we have to do something,� Ripti told The Assam Tribune.

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