Spend more on education, Indian students tell government

As part of their Stand Up and Take Action, YUVA-Rural, a Nagpur based social organisation in western India mobilised volunteers and money from 426 villages, 14 districts and 53 talukas of Maharashtra for a very unusual action. 

Toilets for girl students

By collecting a rupee from every villager, the organisation raised Rs. 26,993 to repair girls’ toilets in village schools. The volunteers, including the village residents, painted, cleaned and repaired the toilets to make them functional and clean for use.

All the villagers participated in the process enthusiastically and have decided to continue the process and have promised to ensure the cleanliness of the toilets and undertake repairs when necessary so that the girls in the villages have access to clean sanitation facilities.

Volunteers from YUVA / Photo credit: UNMC

Jitendra Deshmukh, a member of YUVA says: “The Stand Up Take Action campaign events generated tremendous response and enthused the villagers to participate in a different kind of process. By raising money from among themselves and working on the cleaning and repairs of these toilets, they have taken ownership and responsibility of this process upon themselves. In some schools they even constructed separate temporary toilets for the girl students”.

Petitioning the government

In northern India, Uttar Pradesh Voluntary Action Network (UPVAN) has used the momentum of the Stand Up mobilisation to push the agenda of the Nine is Mine Campaign, which demands budgetary allocation from the government of six percent of the GDP for education and three percent for health, as promised in the government’s Common Minimum Programme.

Around 190,000 students from schools in 70 districts of Uttar Pradesh signed petitions asking the state government to spend nine percent of GDP on health and education. On November 14, these cards were submitted to the state’s education minister.

The Lutheran Aided High School in Rajahmundry in southern India is one of 100-odd schools in which the People’s Action for Rural Awakening conducts Human Rights Education Programmes.

Children signing the petition / Photo credit: UNMC

This programme, which is part of the UN Human Rights Education Programme being undertaken in 10 states in India in collaboration with People’s Watch, aims at creating a culture of human rights among students and through them in the wider civil society.

Motivated by their Stand Up Actions and Human Rights Education, the students of class VI and VII collected over 790 signatures on a memorandum prepared after discussion among themselves on the urgent needs of students.

Accompanied by their teachers, about 250 students participated in a rally and met Rowthu Surya Prakash Rao, the local Member of the legislative assembly who congratulated them on their efforts and promised to hand over the memorandum to the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh.

Father Thomas Pallithanam of the People’s Action for Rural Awakening said: “We have identified 22 constituencies in over 10 districts of Andhra Pradesh in which we intend to come up with a People’s Manifesto through a series of consultations with a wide range of people, and we will present this to the respective members of legislative assembly or Members of Parliament.”