Fondazione Skychildren ETS
No more invisible children – Identity and connection to welfare
Having a birth certificate is the first fundamental right of every child. Article 7 of the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) highlights that “The child shall be registered immediately after birth and has the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his parents". It is estimated that across India, of the 26 million children born each year, approximately 36% go unregistered.Unregistered children are generally the children of the poor and excluded, those belonging to the "untouchable" caste. The caste system has been officially prohibited by law since 1947, the year in which India gained independence, but the reality is very different and caste discrimination is still strongly rooted in everyday life, especially towards the "untouchable" caste , the last of the last, considered like animals. They are people who live below the poverty line (identified by the government as $0.40 a day). It is estimated that in the sub-continent, of the 1 billion and 1000 million human beings, a quarter are untouchable. The current level of birth registration in the country is around 58%, although there is a legal obligation..
Without the birth certificate, children remain "invisible", in legal terms "they do not exist", and are therefore more vulnerable to abuse and violence, organ trafficking and child prostitution. Proof of age is also essential to be protected from early marriages and the scourge of child labor. The lack of a certificate also makes access to government school and healthcare difficult, almost impossible. By not attending school, children remain trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and ignorance. Furthermore, the birth certificate is also important so that the family can add a child to their "ration card". At an older age, the unregistered child will not be able to apply for an identity document, aspire to a formal job, open a bank account, obtain a driving license or a marriage certificate. With this gap, then, the registers of births and deaths in India will never be able to be updated with real data and this leads, among other things, to a lack of regulations, educational and medical facilities adequate for the real number of children and attention to true, tragic, number of children missing, dead or simply ended up nowhere, segregated for life in a red light district or enslaved.
Project objectives and methods of achievement:
- Spread awareness in local communities of the importance of obtaining birth certificates for children. An activity is carried out to raise awareness of the entire community towards this right of children.
– Provide assistance, logistical support to parents to fill out the necessary forms and legal assistance to obtain the certificate. Families are assisted throughout the bureaucratic process up to the actual issuing of the document.
– Increase the number of institutional births in hospitals. Babies born in hospitals are registered and obtain birth certificates.
Results achieved
In the last 12 months we have achieved for our children:
1.147 links to government welfare schemes and 30 digital identities/birth certificates::
28 Aadhar Cards (digital identities) including 15 for station children
2 Birth certificates
16 Ration cards
134 Aadhar Card with ration card (Ration Card)
297 Student credit card - support for continuing studies in India or abroad for the most deserving students from class X onwards
23 Aikyashree Prakalpa -online scholarships for minorities, for deserving students
7 Britti - scholarship for primary education, of which 3 for station children
2 Shikshashree - scholarship of 500 rupees per year to continue the education of disadvantaged children
63 Sukanya Samriddhi Yojna- savings program for girls
24 Kanyashree Prakalpa - offers two scholarships for girls, an annual one of 500 rupees to continue their education and one of 25,000 rupees upon reaching 18 years of age.
1 PPF Scheme (Public Provident Found)
75 Swasthya Sathi - secondary and tertiary medical cover for the family, including 47 for station children
53 new personal bank accounts to subsequently apply for and receive grants from government programs (current accounts must be personal)
144 vaccines for whooping cough, measles and rubella (MMR vaccine)
298 The documents have been prepared for 298 children and the process of requesting connection to study support programs has begun
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info@skychildren.org +39.335.66.52.279
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