Padma Shri Prof Shantha Sinha is a leading child rights activist in India and the founder of MV Foundation. 

“’Child labour is non-negotiable. Every child has to go to school. If a child does not go to school, he or she will end up doing child labour if not already. The whole society thinks it is not essential for poor people to go to school. People in society don’t feel that it affects anyone when poor children don’t go to school. But in fact, it affects everyone. Children are told from an early age that they cannot do anything and have no self-esteem when they grow up. When a child does not go to school, it affects their life, their family’s life, and it has a knock-on effect on their community and the rest of society. However, it is very difficult for parents who have not attended school themselves to enrol their children in school. They cannot read and have no official documents for the children, which are needed to enrol them. We need to help these people and people from lower castes to become more equal.

“Community mobilisation is a very time-consuming process that requires a lot of effort and patience. Mobilisers have to make a strategy to bring about change in their community. If there are a thousand children in the community, then we may have to make a thousand individual plans to help them go to school. The work of mobilisers in communities is enormous. They interact with many people in a community to bring about change. They are driven by their inner passion and intuition. A mobiliser’s inner feeling and motivation are essential to connect with people and make the work happen. When they use their own problem-solving and negotiation skills and are intrinsically motivated, they can create real change in a community. They follow your own intuition to help in a way that best suits each individual situation.”