NICP held virtually to work further towards achieving SDGs

NEW DELHI: National Inclusive Children’s Parliament (NICP) 2021 commenced from January 23 where children from across India joined on a common zoom platform. These children have been constantly working on various issues in their neighborhood children’s parliaments.

NINEISMINE created a forum in 2015 with the ambition to provide an inclusive platform for children to speak. This forum named ‘Children’s Parliament’ is a democratic body designed – of the children, for the children, and by the children. The National Children’s Parliament is a federation of neighborhood children’s parliament, which address local, state, national, and international forums, towards affecting their own lives and those of their peers.

The Government of India is set to go for the next Universal Periodic Review (UPR), and therefore, these children will be working on a UPR process to create a shadow report of the same. On the last day of the session, January 31, children parliamentarians took an oath that they will work dedicatedly towards achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Kurian Josheph, Retired Justice of Supreme Court of India, in his address to the child parliamentarians talked on the topic of inclusivity. He said that the word the world has been stressing is ‘Inclusive’. He added that the whole concept of Bharat is inclusiveness and that India has not excluded anyone, constitutionally, because the first word of the constitution is ‘we’. He said, “Without me, there is no India, with us there is no India. That is the inclusiveness. You may be North Indian or South Indian, Transgender, beggar or rich, you may speak this language or that language. Irrespective of that, there is one thing common among all of us, that we are all Indian, it is our India.”

Shakshi Rai, Vice President of the Inclusive Core Organising Team, presented annual report for NICP 2021 at the forum. The report stated that the organisation, with the help of UNICEF conducted the NICP in November 2020 on the occasion of Child Rights and a series of Climate Parliaments were also organised at state level in Assam, Maharashtra, MP, and Jharkhand. She also mentioned a TEDx Countdown organised by team from New Delhi where Prince William and Pope Francis addressed global audience of around 24,000. Vandana Chavan, Advocate and Indian Politician, addressed the child parliamentarians and asked them to be in sync with what is happening around the world, to be aware of the situations, and to raise their voices collectively at important issues.