MELJOL’S HISTORY

MELJOL is a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 since 1999. MELJOL was initiated as a field action project of the Department of Family & Child Welfare, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai in December 1991. Since its inception, MELJOL has been focussing on fostering healthy attitudes among children, creating awareness of the different needs of children from different backgrounds, and building the spirit of confidence and entrepreneurship in order to create a civil society based on the spirit of coexistence and achievement. Rooted firmly in the belief that children have rights and that children must participate in the creation of a child-friendly world, MELJOL seeks to develop children’s citizenship skills by focussing on children’s rights and responsibilities and providing them with opportunities to contribute positively to the environment.

The figure of an Aflatoun (explorer in Urdu) forms the central trope and vehicle of MELJOL’s teachings. By encouraging children to follow the motto of “Separate Fiction from Fact, Explore, Investigate, Think and Then Act” MELJOL seeks to make each child into an explorer of her or his environment so that she or he thinks first and acts upon the thoughts afterwards. Clubs are used to bring students together and reinforce the messages of MELJOL. These are called MELJOL Clubs or Aflatoun Clubs.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990) serves as the conceptual framework on the basis of which MELJOL bases its interventions. MELJOL is currently operational in the city of Mumbai, Thane (Urban & Rural), Yavatmal, Chandrapur, Nanded, Kolhapur and Osmanabad Districts on the state of Maharashtra in Western India. Its various programmes cover 122,500 children, 2,068 teachers and 751 schools.

MELJOL RURAL

While MELJOL was conceived in the urban districts, it soon felt the need to reach out to children living in the rural and tribal areas of the state of Maharashtra. In 1998, MELJOL took its first steps towards addressing the needs and rights of rural and tribal children. In keeping with the organisation’s vision, the rural programme also aims to nurture a generation that is socially sensitive, empowered to participate, aware of its rights and confident in its ability to give concrete shape to this vision in the development of the world around it. The programme aims at including a Child Rights perspective into the regular curriculum in schools, within the contest of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. It focuses on children’s empowerment through a range of organised activities. It emphasises the need for children’s participation at a village level in the shaping of a child-friendly world. It seeks to involve children in developmental activities and sees them as stakeholders in every project that may be undertaken. The programme is being implemented with the active help of education department authorities, teachers, village-level government functionaries, parents and other significant adults in the children’s lives.