Child Parliament is a platform of raising voice to the concerned authority with facts and experiences. Imagine, a hall room full of young, talented and rights conscious children. A place where duty bearers are gathered to listen to the children. A shadow parliament of children like the national parliament. Isn’t it exciting?
I got a chance to work with the Child Parliament arranging committee from 2008 to 2012. We called this committee “ Child Parliament Core Committee”. So, what actually did this committee do? Well, before starting that story let me tell you how we organised every individual child parliament session.
I can’t avoid the name of the National Children Task’s Force – NCTF when I talk about the Child Parliament. There were two members in every NCTF district committee. They were closely monitoring local child rights situations. At least six months before the session, we decided the issue/topic/theme/subject of the session. Once we finalised the topic for a session, Child Parliament members were doing research, focus group discussion, one to one interview, media monitoring and visiting resource persons at the local level. District Child Parliament members were sending their findings on that particular topic/issue to the central committee/ core committee in a written format and that was the time when the analysis part started for the Core Committee.
20 days before the Child Parliament session, core committee members were coming to Dhaka from different districts of Bangladesh. The team size was almost 20-25. We were used to meeting the resource persons concerned with the topic/issue. We presented the findings of our district child parliamentarians to them and developed a recommendation paper based on the opinion of resource persons. We met different political leaders including Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia, journalists, teachers, diplomats, media personalities, civil society members, businessmen, doctors, and so many professionals. And they were our resource persons.
7 days before the Child Parliament, almost 80 child parliamentarians from 64 districts and 16 specialised groups were coming to Dhaka. We organised different workshop sessions with them. We discussed their findings, the resource person’s opinion, and the way we planned to present/ portray the situation to the duty bearer on the day of the Child Parliament session. I have always enjoyed these 7-8 days a lot. Meeting new people, interacting with new thoughts and cultures were the best parts of my enjoyment.
It was always a gathering of 150 Children and 100 parents from 64 districts for 7-8 days. Cool, na? Usually, the session was starting from 8:30 am through breakfast and ended with dinner at 8 pm. Situation analysis, facts indication, line up the pitch and presentation were the focusing areas of the workshops.
Every time, when I stood up in front of the crowd to facilitate them or say something, I felt inspired. I saw Bangladesh in front of me. Amazing memories I am carrying till today! To organise and make the arrangement successful, the core committee always formed some subcommittee like facilitation, documentation, food, health, security, recreation, reception and accommodation committee.
2-3 days before the Child Parliament session, we were starting to practice a full parliament session. There were Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Panel Speaker, and Parliamentarians. Speaker was responsible to run the session with the help of deputy speakers. Parliamentarians were raising their voice, presenting the situation of their districts or areas in the session to the Speaker. Speaker was running the session like a national parliament session.
On the day of the Child Parliament session, the session was run by the speaker as always and at the end of the session there was a special guest related to the issue/topic of the session and S/he concluded the session with remarks. And, that was the main catch of the session. We were always looking forward to their speech. In this segment, policymakers/ duty bearers were talking about their responsibility/ course of action that needs to be done in the near future. Those were bases for us to work further.
At the end of the session we were returned to our home town. Every time it was almost 20 days isolation from the family and attachment with unknowns!
So, the entire Child Parliament session taught me one thing especially and that is HOW TO RAISE SELF VOICE. This is our right to express ourselves. This is our right to want our parents and surroundings to listen to us. Raising your voice with facts and logic is an art which I’ve been taught by this platform. I’ve learned how to bring local agendas on the national ground to discuss and to find out the way to overcome the challenges. I have learned how to work with the different community people, learn from them, know about their challenges and come up with solutions by working with the Child Parliament Bangladesh.
