Daily Archives: October 7, 2016

Madhubani

Numbers don’t always do the talking

Numbers Don’t Always Do the Talking | Leher NGO in India | Child Rights Organization

Child protection has mostly been synonymous with child labour, child trafficking, child marriage, abuse and more recently juvenile crime and data is always presented in numbers. Data on the subject is presented in the form of numbers, statistics, percentages, etc. The practice of limiting the picture on child protection to mere numbers has been critiqued widely. Numbers do not always tell the entire story. They cannot always present the journey of a community towards social change – a parent who is now more confident and feels acknowledged by the community for allowing his 16-year-old daughter to continue her education by postponing her wedding, a shop owner who now is hesitant and fears selling gutka, pan, beedi to the children in the village, a teacher who is no longer irregular to school and is watchful about the quality of mid-day meal being served, a girl who is confident enough to tell a boy teasing her that she will report him to 1098 if he continues teasing, or children changing the route they take to school to ensure they are safe and that that another girl does not drop out! 2 years into the journey, it is the rich conversations, experiences, stories, which are very telling, which reaffirms the need to focus on ‘repeated conversations’ and ‘process’ in order to drive community organization for social change.