The Community Mobilisers Conclave Meeting

The Community Mobilisers Conclave in Jaipur, India, July 2023, gathered nearly 200 attentive community mobilisers; the people who work in communities to eradicate child labour. They had travelled to Jaipur from the WNCB programme states of Bihar, Delhi NCR and Rajasthan for this three-day event.  

Organised by WNCB India alliance partners Manjari Sansthan and Aravali Foundation, the Community Mobilisers Conclave was entirely dedicated to empowering the community and field mobilisers. To put mobilisers in the spotlight. Their work in the communities is essential and indispensable to eradicate child labour and get children back to school. The conclave provided the opportunity for the mobilisers to interact and network, to learn from each other, share good practices, success stories, innovative ideas, and make new friends.

Some experiences….

”I am very excited for this meeting and for these days. The way I work as a mobiliser is maybe different from that of other mobilisers. I can learn from their experience.”

”It is a great opportunity for me to be here at the Mobilisers Conclave. I am very excited! When we travel to other places, we see different things and different ways of doing things, and so we can learn new things. It is very special that we were invited to this meeting all the way in Jaipur. We come from Bihar and now we are in Rajasthan, so this is a great opportunity for us. I will remember this experience and will share the story with the children and families in the community back home.”

”’Community mobilisers are always in the field. We have very little opportunity to visit a meeting like this Mobilisers Conclave. Therefore, it is very exciting for us to be able to attend this meeting. We all have a great desire to learn. We want to know what other mobilisers do and how they approach the work in their areas. Because we are from another state, there will be some differences. We are very grateful to have the opportunity to be here.’

Some mobilisers faced challenges to be able to attend the Community Mobilisers Conclave. Girls and women in particular struggled to get permission from their families to travel. In India, not all women and girls can make such a long journey on their own. For those who are married, interstate travel with men who are not their husbands is difficult too. 

“With support of the organisation we were able to travel. They provided proof of the train tickets, showed our families photos of our work and showed them the invitation to the Mobilisers Conclave. This helped to convince them that this meeting was legitimate and that it was safe for us to attend.”