The Global Forum on Sustainable Rural Development (GFSRD) has launched its dedicated Global Resource Centre for Ensuring Childhood (GRECEC) on 20th November, 2023 at 6:00 PM India Time on the World Children's Day.
This is a commemorative date as a recognition of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child by the UN General Assembly and it is also the UNICEF’s annual day of action for children, by children, marking the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Annually, the day is praised and celebrated on November 20 in honor of children.
The Global Forum on Sustainable Rural Development (GFSRD) has organized an Experience Sharing Session on "Situation of Children in Rural Areas: Country-specific Experiences" through its Global Resource Centre for Ensuring Childhood (GRECEC).
Experts from different countries participated in this session and contributed to the discussions and the deliberations.
The event started by welcoming the participants from different countries. Dr. Helen R. Sekar, Head, GRECEC of the GFSRD invited Dr. Jayanta Choudhury, Founder, Global Forum on Sustainable Rural Development (GFSRD) to launch the physical infrastructure of the Global Resource Centre for Ensuring Childhood (GRECEC) located in Tamil Nadu, one of the southern States of India.
On this auspicious day, when the whole world is observing ‘Children’s Day’ Dr. Jayanta Choudhury launched the Global Resource Centre for Ensuring Childhood in the virtual presence of experts from different countries across the globe.
Country-specific presentations were made by Mr. Shridad Mohammadi (Afghanistan), Mr. Gnanamuthu Bosco Rajah (Srilanka), Mr. Amir Nasrullah, Bangladesh, Ms. Orfa Pence (Peru) and Ms. Maria Enderwati (Indonesia)
The broad objective of this event was to share knowledge on the situation of children in the rural areas, their challenges and obstacles in accessing education, nutrition, health-care and evolving policies and programmes to address these issues.
The presentations made in the session enhanced understanding on the various issues relating to the vulnerability of children in the rural areas particularly those who live in difficult terrains such as the coast lines, forest regions, mountainous localities, etc.,
The importance of timely action in the context of area-specific realities, and the causes of distress of rural children were discussed in detail in each of the presentations.
The importance of reducing vulnerability, obstacles, challenges, and locating opportunities for addressing the problems timely and effectively was highlighted.
While concluding the session, Dr. Jayanta Choudhury, Founder, GFSRD, suggested that the Global Resource Centre for Ensuring Childhood (GRECEC) should bring out a digital publication on Country-specific Situation of Rural children.
It was agreed to bring out this digital publication shortly starting with issues from select countries. The event ended proposing vote of thanks.