Children Lead the Way: Nandwal’s Journey Toward a Clean and Beautiful Village

[Vikrant Jadhav]

I facilitated a SALT session with 80 children in Village Nandwal. Out of them, 20 children came together to dream about their village. Cleanliness emerged as their strongest concern. Sixteen children (7 boys and 9 girls) decided to take action.
With support from the Avani team, they began visiting homes in the village, encouraging families to segregate wet and dry waste. The families agreed but explained that segregation would only be done once the mobile garbage collection van resumed service.
In response, the children wrote an application to the local Panchayat. Inspired by the children’s initiative, the Panchayat promised that the garbage van service would restart within a few days. Parents expressed pride in their children’s leadership, and the story was even covered in the media.
Children's Rights Forum's statement for a clean, beautiful village
Nandwal The Children's Rights Forum has been running in the village for the last 2 years and the reading program is being implemented under the action project for gender equality and equity run by AVANI Sanstha. The children of Nandwal Children's Rights Forum have seen a dream for the village, in which the children themselves created a dream of a clean village, garden, library, high school, college, playground, planting trees, clean schools and beautiful schools, health centers. Since the Gram Panchayat and public participation are important to fulfill this dream, the said demand statement was given to the elected Sarpanch, Hon. Amar Kumbhar. At this time, Hon. Tanaji Kamble, Deputy Sarpanch, Hon. Priyanka Patil, Village Development Officer, were present. Hon. Anuradha Bhosale guided the statement to make it successful. According to the statement given, the demands of the Bal-Adhikar Manch for making the village beautiful are as follows.
1. Awareness should be created about cleanliness in the village
2. A bell car should be started in the village
3. A child protection committee should be established in the village
4. A library should be established in the village
5. A health center should be established in the village
6. A playground should be established in the village
At this statement, Child Rights Forum Sairaj Patil, Pranjali Rumale, Vedant Kumbhar, Venkatesh Patil, Sharvari Jadhav, Prithviraj Patil, Siddhesh Nikam, Pratiraj Patil, Sambhav Rumale, Shrivardhan Khadre, Nishikari Patil, Vivek Patil, Anjali Rumale, Harshvardhan Patil, as well as activists of Avani Sanstha Jainuddin Panhalkar Vikrant Jadhav, Shahrukh Atpade, Kaushalya Agre, Jayshree Kamble were present.