Country: India

Idea: Urbanization has promoted individualism. Schools lack value education. Urban parents sparingly spend quality time to educate children about values like compassion, empathy and tolerance. In urban slums younger children are put to the care of elder siblings, being denied basic care, leave alone nurturing from parents. Little Bo Peep is planned as Children’s Centers in urban areas to develop children’s capabilities to peep into their own mental maps (values) and create awareness of simple ethics and moral practices understood through fun-filled activities and dialogues. Privileged and less privileged children would be exposed to situations different from their own to question, check and enhance their own values and ethical practices.

How do you do it: Starting activity centers in neighbourhoods and/or designing a programme in partnership with urban schools. Implementation: Privileged and less privileged children 4 -8 years of age would participate in enjoyable trips, community activities, group projects, scheduled on week-ends. There would be “Themes” under which specific activities would be planned. A suggestive list of themes could be Tolerance (visit a mosque/gurudwara/worship place), Compassion (Sing for Old-Age Home inhabitants), Heritage (walk inside Gandhiji’s Ashram, Ahmedabad), etc. Follow up dialogues would help children develop ethically strong values as understood through such group visits. Volunteers: Senior citizen’s clubs would be organized/motivated to volunteer.

Innovation: Envisaged as an Education Extension Model, involving neighbourhoods and/or urban schools, it is developed on the simple principle of FUN that motivates children to participate willingly while provides urban parents a value- learning center for their children.

The conscious mix of children from the have and have-not sections enables children with diverse maps/values to participate as one group as they become aware of each others unique abilities and learn to appreciate differences. This would be a marked change in creating an ethically sound children’s community first to impact the society at large.

Participation of senior citizens’ is strategic and would work as a parallel force to bring together the very young and the old.

Impact: The concept has a potential of addressing social stereotypes and value systems as children carry forward their experiences and understandings to those with whom they interact. The intervention expects a definite rippling effect to impact the immediate worlds of these children.

Differences get planted in young minds from obvious differences observed by children in their own surroundings, like food and clothes, rituals and prayers, etc. As children would be guided to see the similarities and respect the differences, they are empowered to behave ethically.

When degeneration of values is checked at very young age, we develop not just ethically strong children but minds/individuals groomed to shape a more ethically strong society.

Ethical Action: Ignoring children’s objectionable words/behaviours leads to reinforcing poor values, that they could be practicing without adequate information and guidance. Taking children to see “How a cow is milked” could give lessons in animal protection. During the same visit, if a slum child shows courage to feel a cow, it creates an opportunity for the rich urban/others to imitate and modify a map that animals are harmful along with developing ethical skills as they learn that urban slum kids can be smarter and should be spoken with dignity. Follow up dialogues make them aware of values, which coexist (ethical an unethical), recognize their own values as they notice their own behaviour, and introduces them to options of ethically sound practices.

Replication: Promoting the concept in neighbourhoods could be done by joining hands with city clubs like Rotary, which has a children’s wing. Occurrence of Gujarat riots and weakening of the social fabric has been a concern for the civic authorities. A partnership with the city administration, to involve schools and device a mechanism to have atleast one center amidst a cluster of schools would help in expanding the reach. Eventually a wider geographic area can be covered.

Replicating the concept would involve: ý Advocacy to promote the objectives of the programme with the municipal body. ý Forming networks of Schools that show interest. ý Mobilizing resources to expand reach ý Motivating Senior Citizens to form new clubs and to volunteer

Sustainability: Increase in number of nuclear families to increase in number of senior citizens/retirees living a lonely life with off spring either settling abroad or staying afar, there is a growing need for senior citizens to engage in meaningful activities. The involvement of senior citizens to provide volunteer is strategic to the long-term sustainability.

As a conscious decision, group activities carried out for the neighbourhocd children having a more than average family income could be nominally charged as a mechanism to subsidize the cost of children for economically lower sections participating in the programme.

Partnership with city administration and networking with schools helps support the efforts.

Position in the Ethics Mosaic of Solutions:

Factor: Individualism

Principle: Developing self-awareness and interconnectedness