After the immense success of their quarterly wall newspaper Jugnu ,over 300 children of Bapu Dham colony have undertaken a new initiative to learn about grassroots democracy. They have done this by forming a 15-member Bal Panchayat,which will aim to look into the problems of the people of the colony. After contemplating the issues the children will try to provide solutions to their day- to-day problems. A meeting was organised by a city based NGO Yuvsatta today at the Bapu Dham Colony,Sector 26. Fifty per cent members of this panchayat are female. Suman a Class X student was elected President of the panchayat. The other office- bearers elected include Akash as chairman,Shailender as Vice-Chairman,Suman as President and Priya as Vice President. The meeting of Panchayat was preceded by a 15 over cricket match between girls of Bapu Dham Colony and Panjab University . Bapu Dham girls won the match by a small margin of three runs. Bapu Dham children also launched the new issue of their wall newspaper with the help from the students from Department of Mass Communication. Talking about the concept Parmod Sharma,Coordinator of the Yuvsatta said Bal Panchayat is childrens first lesson in participation,self-expression and grassroots democracy.
