Partner :  Save the Children
Sector : Nonprofit
Location : Mumbai
Language : English
SDG : UN Sustainable Development Goals 4, 5, 6 and 10 (Quality Education, Gender Equality, Clean Water & Sanitation, and Reducing Inequalities respectively)
Event : THE GLOBAL CITIZEN FESTIVAL

Save the Children is one of India’s leading child rights & children education NGO working in 18 states. Started off in India in April 2008, they have since touched the lives of more than 1.1 crore children which is increasing every single day. Their programmes are designed to reach out to the most marginalized communities in India to ensure they are well nourished, healthy and educated.

Save the Children has collaborated with Global Citizen movement for its campaign- “Every Last Child” with a focus on street children.  The campaign extends its support to those children who are ‘excluded’, not only in terms of being unnoticed but also that they don’t have any identification to prove they exist which is a major blockade for them to access any possible service in today’s world. The aim of ‘Every Last Child’ is to remove barriers that stop children from learning, surviving and thriving by putting the spotlight on the most excluded and marginalised children so that no child in the world should be left on the street without an identity and the mission won’t be fulfilled till the time every child becomes “included” and has better life to live. Apart from discriminatory barriers, the campaign also aims at removing financial barriers in the way of quality essential services and accountability barriers that come in the way of empowering excluded children and their communities.

Global citizens builds huge movements of social actions through mix of contents and events and organizes massive global campaigns to amplify actions of Global citizens and to accomplish United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals which include increasing access to education, clean water & sanitation, gender equality and healthcare to eradicate poverty by 2030.

Global Citizen India was a milestone moment in the fight against poverty. 

The haziness in the way of visibility

As educated and well sustained individuals, we sometimes are not able to relate to the multiple challenges faced by many people at the things we take for granted- having an identity, accessing quality healthcare, opening a bank account, making a transaction, basic safety and the next meal on the table. More than that, the threat that a lack of proper identity possesses a massive threat to these children and prevents them from accessing services like education and increasing the risk of gender based issues as they can’t raise it. A challenge for us was to make people aware of these, to sensitise them about the existence and the grass-root condition of these children because until that happens, people won’t feel motivated to make a difference in society and create a better life for them. They would also need to be made aware of the efforts Save The Children is making to bring change in those children’s life so that people who feel connected to the mission come forward for support.

Another challenge for us was to get people together as a collective effort has a far greater impact that an individual would ever have. Participating in an event was an answer to both these challenges as people not just become aware but are also involved till they are there.

This event has been designed to accomplish the SDGs. Thus many other organisations were participating and showcasing their efforts and the causes they support. We need to stand out and attract the audience to sign up for our cause for reaching to Every Last Child.

Many high profile individuals and actors from the film industry were present to support their causes. This event had a national level approach to achieve the greatest impact for invisible children.

Making the invisible’ children visible

It’s rightly said that the first step towards solving a problem is accepting that it exists. Our approach towards the solution was an attempt to give an experience to people of what we as a society sometimes do by turning a blind eye towards these impoverished, excluded children as if they don’t exist or in other words- “invisible”.

India has one of the highest percentage of street children in the world with 26% of them under six years of age. It’s also an accepted fact that the risks & challenges faced by the Indian marginalized kids are very different from the other marginalized kids in the developed world. Save The Children realizes this and hence, the campaign focused on fulfilling different set of goals and objectives for India and the world. While the objectives for Indian children focused more on removing socio economic inequality, rescuing vulnerable and deprived children and eradicating girl child discrimination; the ones for children worldwide included fair chance, equal treatment and accountability for all.

Attending this “concert of a lifetime”, thousands of young, enthusiastic advocates with the willingness to make a social impact, engaged with us. On small circles, they wrote their dreams & messages for the betterment of children with the intention of making them more visible, and pinned them up on what was called as the ‘dream board’. One could also see them posing with funky glasses, with the intention that these actions would symbolize increased visibility for #EveryLastChild.

To make the event more impactful and give a unique experience to the attendees, it was decided to create something that is in line with our theme of excluded children and hence, the main attraction of the event- ‘Glasses of Clarity’ were used which were based on the theme of the Ishihara test. The Ishihara test is a colour perception eye used to check red-green colour deficiencies and involves people focusing on a particular number to know if they can clearly see it. On a large photo cutout, attendees wearing those glasses could see images of children who would otherwise have been hidden (or invisible as we may say) with a message- “Thanks for making us visible”. This symbolically represented that they then had a clearer vision and see these invisible children which would eventually lead to people taking action towards making their lives better and making them “visible” in society. The Glasses of Clarity became a rage amongst the visitors with many celebrities clicking selfies with them at this photo corner with multiple shares on social media.

It was thrilling to see the audience enthralled with the  performances of the likes of A.R. Rahman, Amitabh Bachchan, Farhan Akhtar, Jay-Z, Demi Lovato, and Ranveer Singh as leaders from across India and the world answered Global Citizens’ calls to commit to real, concrete change in the world. And the focus throughout from all the leaders at the GCIF was on the power of the youth to make a brighter future. At the same time, we were also glad that all these power packed performances couldn’t stop people from visiting our stall especially due to the curiosity created due to the dream board and glasses of clarity.

The visible change

The primary intention of the event was realized as people not just from Mumbai but all over Maharashtra and India including a lot of celebrities came together, made themselves aware of these issues and pledged their support.  Realizing the fact that lack of an identity in many senses makes children invisible and leads to problems with accessing education, healthcare and massively increases the risk of gender based issues, they committed to helping children get an identity and extend every possible support to them so they can get educated and in turn- empowered. Since there were a lot of celebrities attending the event with almost all having huge following on social media, their photograph with the “Glasses of Clarity” and the hashtag #TheInvisibles and #EveryLastChild went a long way since many of their followers associated themselves with the campaign and pledged their commitment towards saving Every Last Child.“Each and every one of you here tonight has the opportunity to be the greatest advocates and activists of our generation,” Global Citizen founder and CEO Hugh Evans told the crowd, noting that global leaders had committed to improvements that would affect over 250 million lives.

IMPACT

The massive impact that the campaign made and the expected impact potential can be figured out by the very fact that over 80,000 people got together for the event as Global Citizens with commitments worth 43,416 crore announced by the governments, corporations, social influencers & development partners . At the end of the event, over 21 lakh actions lead to 25 commitments towards sustainable goals which are expected to impact around 516 million  lives across the globe.

Keywords

Invisible children, street children, migration to cities, social campaign, advocacy campaign, awareness campaign, Global campaign, Vulnerable children, #EveryLastChild, Urban Poor Children, Rural India, Abandoned Children, Children with Disabilities, Crime against Children, Dalit Children, Child Labour, Children in Slums, Migrated Children, Missing Identity, Excluded Children, Empower Children, Catalyse Positive Change, Sustainable Development Goals, Development Sector Implementation, Social Sector Campaign Awareness Campaign