by Bento D'Souza
AHMEDNAGAR, DECEMBER 27, 2013: On 15th December children spent the day celebrating Children's day in BGVK. Fr Savio Silveira, 
BGVK conducted a Children's Day and Child Rights Day Celebration on Sunday, in which outstanding children parliamentarians were celebrated for their active performance in the community development initiative.
The chief guests for the occasion were Frs. Solomon Rapol and Gregory D'Almeida.A satkar was held to welcome the dignitaries and supporters of the project.
Many cultural events, skits, dance and song were conducted as part of the celebrations to showcase the children's talents right through the day.
Keeping child rights in the forefront of their mission, BGVK, a voluntary organization working for the development of children at risk, empowers children to know about their rights and helps them put it into practice through a platform called Children Parliament.
All the children who are catered to by BGVK have been exposed to this practice and are part of children parliament in various target areas of the city, where they not only discuss the problem among themselves but also contact the local political bodies and solve their problems, besides taking their own initiatives to solve a problem.
Children who belong to low income groups, street children and slum children, hold important positions in the children parliament, where they tend to articulate and empathise on their problems as well as others and also solve them practically.
"Before coming to BGVK, we were just like any another kid playing on the street, not knowing where we live and under what conditions. But today, after six years into children parliament, I know what's going around me and ways to make it right for us. Through our parliament, we have educated several children who were devoid of school education and solved many basic issues in our community by contacting related local bodies. This has given us the confidence to face the world with a new strength," said a student .Going forward, BGVK's mission is to expand this initiative of educating everyone about child rights through children parliament in all areas of the city. Currently, there are around more than a 1000 children under this specially prepared mandap. "We are constantly looking forward to expand in all the places. These rural kids and children are the ones who don't have their basic rights, so we educate them about the rights they are entitled to and make them fight for it, which is possible only by involving them in the children parliament," said a special coordinator of BGVK.