Underlining its aim to empower orphaned and vulnerable children to reach their full potential, Miracle Foundation, India, conducted their first-ever Children’s Youth Ambassador’s Workshop, Meeting of the Champions. The initiative took place from July 27 to 29 at Mumbai’s Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini Centre. The foundation had received a total of 78 applications from children living across 17 childcare institutions, of which twelve were selected. These youth ambassadors, between the age of 13 to 21 and from different regional diversities, will be the voices of millions of children like them.
The ambassadors were assessed on parameters like passion, communication, presence, engagement and attitude through written and video applications. The selection panel comprised of representatives from the foundation and children from associated childcare homes with prior experience in media interactions, leadership and public speaking. Expressing her excitement, Saloni (one of the youth ambassadors) said, “As a youth ambassador, I want to develop my strengths and abilities. I want to improve my knowledge on child rights and skills in communications, leadership, and understanding.”
The three-day workshop focussed on training these young, emerging leaders to raise awareness on child rights through various skill-building sessions of storytelling, media-training, and communication skills. The ambassadors have the opportunity to learn, create and participate in different types of media — from print to online, interviews to blogging and social media — to share their perspectives as one of the millions of children living without families around the world.
Speaking on the programme, Nivedita Dasgupta, India country head, Miracle Foundation, India, said, “At the Miracle Foundation, we believe in doing all that we can to empower and facilitate children in need of care and protection to realise their true potential. Over the years, we have been working towards improving the standards of care across CCIs (childcare institutions) in India. So what better way to do this than to get our children to lead the change? We have always believed and advocated that every child has a right to be heard and participate. With this in mind, we have created the programme with a focus on raising awareness on bringing positive change to the childcare system in the country. Through this, we, along with our youth ambassadors, can reach out to the right stakeholders and change-makers to facilitate this movement and be the voice of millions of other children that are living the very same experience.”
As youth ambassadors, children actively participated and got featured in social and general media to reform the childcare system. As part of the larger child participation and youth advocacy initiative at the foundation, the goal of the youth ambassador programme is to ensure that children have their voices heard and are actively engaged in the childcare system and family-based care space that serves them.
