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.

BALWANI is only a small part of a quiet revolution started by children in Lalitpur district, identified by the Planning Commission among the seven districts of Bundelkhand in southwest Uttar Pradesh. These are among the 100 most poor districts in India. It all started in November 2005 in Lalitpur’s Sunaura village. The village had one school with 102 children enrolled but it remained closed for at least half the month and when it was open, the teacher couldn’t keep awake.

The villagers decided to do something and 18 children led by the Children Council formed by Saarthi Foundation under the UNICEF’s Village Integrated Planning (Bal Bandhu Pariyojna), along with village elders, made a spirited demand before the Assistant Basic Shiksha Adhikari that a teacher be appointed in their school. Moved by the children’s plea, the ABSA promised a teacher would be appointed in their school by April 1 2006. Before April 1, the school got one.

This prompted a similar movement in Radhapur village where the school’s lone teacher was transferred without a replacement. One day they approached the sub-divisional magistrate of the area. The next day, a teacher was appointed in their school.

THE change is not all about schools. In Sunaura village, 13-year-old Usha’s father was getting her married to an already married 40-year-old. On December 2, the day of the wedding, the entire village stood up and warned the groom against marrying the girl. He beat a hasty retreat. This was unheard of in a region where the average marrying age for a girl is 15.

The change was initiated by UNICEF under its Integrated Village Planning Project with the help of Saarthi Foundation. The project has already covered around fifty per cent of the over 350 villages of Lalitpur district. The project works on the premise of sustainable development of village through direct involvement of people and so has formed various Samuhas (groups). The groups — Bal Samuha, Kishori and Kishor Samuha and Mahila Samuha— hold regular meetings to discuss issues and share ways to tackle them.

Each village today has an information centre that has detailed information on the village — the number of houses, literacy rate, level of HIV/AIDS awareness, immunization data, number of school-going children and sanitation facilities.

In a year’s time, the villagers have learnt to address their problems and find solutions. Each village chalks out its work schedule and it is painted prominently on a wall for every one to read. On reading about the absence of a toilet in Tal Behet village on one such wall, the children took the initiative to do something about it. They got an application with signatures of all villagers and stormed into the office of the Block Development Officer (BDO). ‘‘He asked us to get the pits dug and promised to get money released for a pucca toilet in a week,’’ says Anup, the leader of Bal Samuha of the village.

The work schedule includes what needs to be done and the name of the person responsible for it. ‘‘The purpose is to make them self-sufficient and fight their own battle, because we will eventually move on to other places,’’ says Shafqat. He says their brief is to get the villagers used to a clean and decent life and ‘‘once they are, they will themselves demand their rights.’’

The success story has finally traveled to the state capital. On May 18 this year, Principal Secretary Planning Department V Venkatchalam visited Agar village. Since the project cost is just Rs 1,300 per village, the government now aims to replicate it in other districts. ‘‘I have recommended that the Planning Commission take up the project in the eleventh five-year plan,’’ says Venkatchalam.

Getting together

The project has also helped the Saharia tribe join the mainstream. The Saharias, who work on quarries crushing stones and making beedis, were treated as outcasts in Bundelkhand and their children were denied admission to schools.

The UNICEF intervention made a difference with its informal schools called ‘Mera School’, where school-going children of other communities teach the Saharia children. ‘‘I really like it that I can now write my name,’’ says Asharfi, the 20-year-old oldest student of Mera School. In just one year, of the 22 students of Mera School in Jamalpur village in Lalitpur district, 15 have started going to government junior schools.