UNICEF, Madhya Pradesh in partnership with NINEISMINE (PRATYeK) organised a State Children’s Climate Parliament to enable young citizens of Madhya Pradesh to proactively engage on climate change and the sustainable development goal 13 of the United Nations.
NINEISMINE is a campaign for child rights convened by PRATYeK which attempts to educate children and their care providers in the art of advocacy and justice with a focus on child-rights and earth rights.
Considering climate change action as an emergency, participants of child parliament, across the state with the support of Unicef and NINEISMINE (PRATYeK) had a consultation on climate change and came up with recommendations to combat climate change.
They had dialogues with duty bearers of MP on Wednesday evening and handed over the charter of demands on climate change to the duty bearers and requested consideration of their demands during designing and climate change policies and action.
Nirmala Buch, president of CROMP said, "we are here to evidence children sharing the charter of demands on climate change. Let us seriously take what they are sharing with us and help them to make their voices heard and reach the decision-makers."
Steve Rocha, Director of PRATYeK said, Children’s are not future, they are present. He also stated that their voices should be heard now to make a better future for them.
Anuradha Joshi, Sarpanch, Kondaria shared that at village level they request people to plant more trees, avoid and reuse plastics, and take some steps for rainwater harvesting to combat climate change. He added that likewise, at all levels and individual levels possible steps to be taken against climate change that will make a bigger difference altogether.
Brajesh Chouhan, member State Commission for Protection of Child Rights said that the campaign is empowering the children to identify the root cause of the problem to derive the conclusions to address it.
"Agriculture is mostly affected because of climate change; sources of water are getting drained and scarcity for the water is seen everywhere. Children are the right people to talk about suggesting actions against climate change and we elders must listen to them", Chauhan said.
Anil Gulati, Communication expert, Unicef, MP shared, "we as an adult have a major role to play in making children’s voices heard at the decision-making levels".
"To prevent the disasters in future, we must take actions now. Before it’s too late we should start taking small actions towards combating climate change", said Shreyansh, a child representative.
Ananya, another child representative said that farmers are facing hardships due to climate change. Their hard work is going to waste due to climate change. We should seriously start thinking about climate change and save our farmers, she added.
