Shaishav
Organisation Biography
Shaishav works with children living in the slums of Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India. These children face all the challenges associated with slum life – child labour, child marriage, physical and sexual abuse, gender discrimination and substance abuse to name but a few.
We recognise that a child who brings about change themselves will enrich not only their own life, but society for generations to come. Consequently we work alongside the children, giving them the space and support to take control of their own future. They are directly involved in all of our decision making and in running activities.
Because so much of Bhavnagar’s child labour goes on in homes, ending it needs a grassroots, holistic approach. We help the children realise that they have a choice and to fight for it, and we also work with parents and employers to support this change.
In this way, we have decreased the number of child labourers in our project areas by 78% in the period of 3 years from 2013 to 2016. We have all but eliminated child marriage, and enrolled over 15,000 children in school over the past 25 years.
Based on this learnings Shaishav has just launched a new initiative called “Aaranyak” which is an open learning space for tribal children which is designed in self design learning method. Besides it will be a simple, sustainable and community living which will make children a good citizen and independent person who respect and connected with nature.
We believe that children are “Change Makers.”