WHEN seven-year-old Sonam and ten-year-old Deepshikha step out in their villages Jamalpur and Radhapur, the powerful grow nervous.

They are news reporters in their areas who write and sketch for a magazine Balwani — bachchon ki awaz (voice of children). And if their exposes don’t work, the local babu usually finds an army of them standing belligerently before his office.

The dread the reporters have created is such that often attempts are made to bribe them. But report they will. ‘‘The villagers try to lure us when we are on to something, but we refuse,’’ says 12-year-old Anup from Sunaura village.

Balwani is an innovative approach by the UNICEF to make children more responsive to their surroundings. There are 30 children from 10 different villages who function as reporters. The first issue of the magazine is already out and work on the second one is in progress.

‘‘We started this in consultation with the Basic Shiksha Adhikari. For over a year, we have been holding regular training workshops for these children,’’ says Shafqat Hussain of Bal Bandhu who is carrying out this UNICEF project in Lalitpur. The youngest reporters are eight-year-olds Deepshikha and Rashmi and the oldest are 13-year-olds. The teachers vet the reporters’ stories and improve upon them. In their first issue, the child reporters have etched their impressions in colourful sketches. If one sketch shows the teacher sleeping in class, the other depicts the drinking problem in the village by showing a man manhandling his wife.

... contd.