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India Student Parliament Leads
School Change1
Caroline BrennanI

n an August 2007 edition of the Dhina Thanthi newspaper in southern India, astory told of a parliament prime minister who discovered a disparity in government scholarships for students in tsunami-affected areas of Cuddalore, just westof the Bay of Bengal.
Suraksha (Future) program, an evolution of theBavishia (Transition) programs for children's
recovery following the 2004 tsunami. Overthe past three years, Catholic Relief Services
has worked closely with partners, including
the Pondicherry Multipurpose Social ServiceSociety, on trauma counseling, back-to-school
initiatives, local children's libraries, parks, puppet shows and street plays. The programs all
center on psychosocial care, health and hygiene,
and children's rights — the most basic of which
may be unfamiliar.
Ram Kumar, project manager for the Pondicherry Multipurpose Social Service Society,explains, “A father might be an alcoholic andpush his child into child labor, saying, 'If you
don't go to work, the family will starve.' And thechild drops out of school. If a child is a laborer,definitely he is a dropout, which we should notallow. It is a child's inherent … right by his or
her birth to get an education.”
So what formed in disaster's aftermath as aforum for children to support each other — andto become aware of issues and rights — has
evolved into a forum for them to support others,
and to do something about those rights.
The Suraksha program started in the summer of 2007 and today it supports as many as

The prime minister waged a campaign andended up making headlines — not because sherounded up teachers, the Municipal Counciland government leaders to make the scholarship available to schools in her region. Rather,
she made headlines because she, herself, was astudent at one of those schools. Prime Minister
Eskomala Sundaray is just thirteen years old.
Eskomala is halfway through her year term
as prime minister of the Erke (meaning "Nature") Parliament. After a democratic election
by her school peers, she is leading the district's
first Children's Parliament, which includes
eight other ministers and a total of twentymembers.
With the meetings' backdrop a schoolyard, itwould be easy to underestimate what is happening here. But make no mistake, this parliament
is not child's play. The students use this forum
to make real change. When they notice anotherclassmate without a pencil or notebook, theypull together the rupees to purchase materials; when electricity goes out on their blockpreventing them from studying, they rally forlight; and when a student doesn't show up forschool because of issues related to child labor,
they get the student back in school.
The Children's Parliament is part of the7980  HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION IN ASIAN SCHOOLS

two hundred Children's Parliaments across several districts. Students at interested schools first
took part in trainings to learn about parliament
structure and practices.
On a recent visit, Ram Kumar and I decided
to meet with the person behind those newspaper headlines. We found Eskomala in what wasobviously a comfortable role for her, standing
before her fellow ministers and some twenty
other students sitting in a circle. They started
the meeting by singing a song related to keeping
good health. After reading the minutes from theprevious meeting, things got started.

Eskomala looked to the finance minister,
who said that the materials could not be purchased because not all of the ministers had paid
their monthly dues. Commotion started again.
All looks went to the health minister.
The finance minister said, “If you give, wewill go then and buy the sports material.”
The health minister, his face various shadesof red, walked over to the finance minister andmade his payment. Everyone clapped. The topic
then moved to keeping the school grounds
maintained and options for celebrating National
Children's Day.

Meeting Minutes

The Collector

Eskomala turned her attention first to Public
Works Minister Sarath Kumar Thirinevesar, 14,
a former school dropout.
“Are you cleaning all the streets and everything?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Sarath.
“But the drainage is all blocked and, with themonsoon rains, we've had a lot of problems,”
she said.
“I went to meet the Municipal Council andthe drainage is now clear,” he responded.
Eskomala looked surprised. “Why did you
go to the MC without telling the group?” sheasked.
“I called others and nobody came,” hesaid.
She turned to the rest of the group. “Whydidn't you go when he called you?”
A commotion started. People looked down,
whispering could be heard, a few voices slightly
louder than others indicated that yes, they knew,
yes, they should have gone.
Eskomala reprimanded them for not responding to a fellow minister's request andasked if they understood. They said they did.

When the parliament meeting ended, theprime minister sat with us to talk about thestory that had made her a Cuddalore celebrity.
Eskomala and her classmates had become awareof a scholarship — the equivalent of $8 a monthfor tuition — available to tsunami-affectedschool students. In fact, some of their family
members in other villages were receiving it. Not
only was her school not providing the scholarship, Eskomala says, it also was pressuring theirparents to pay the fees.
"We decided to write a memo to the education department and copied the government
collector [a top government official]. We took
a resolution, which our educational minister
endorsed and, with the help of the ward counselor and the school's headmistress, sent thememo."
But no reply came. Rather than wait, theydecided to deal with the problem in person.
With her teacher, parents and the Municipal
Council representative in tow, Eskomala walked
over to the palatial, gated building of the top
government official, known as “the Collector.” It should be noted that when people talkabout the Collector, it is with the fear, awe andrespect usually reserved for a head of state oran international peacemaker recently released
from prison. The Collector is all-powerful; few

Next issue.
The sports minister stood. “Why haven't I
gotten the sports materials I requested?”India Student Parliament and School Change  81

ever interact with him face-to-face, walk into
his office or suggest that he is doing somethingwrong. Eskomala was about to do just that. Thiswas in August 2007.
“I was trembling with fear and sweating
because it was the first time we went in frontof the Collector with our petition. My teacher
gave me some practice before on how to speak,”recalls Eskomala.
They walked into his office — the size ofthree classrooms combined — and introduced
themselves. The Collector looked at her andsaid, “You are very small and now you are coming to speak to me like this. Are you not veryfrightened?”
Eskomala responded, “I have not come formyself; I have come for my entire group. So if I
come for myself, I need to be frightened; if I comefor my group, why should I feel frightened?”
Surprised, the Collector invited her in andgave her his time. Less than an hour later, itwas confirmed: the students at her school andin the surrounding areas would have access tothe scholarship.

“In my position I am doing so much. In thepositions of public and government ministers,
I would want them to do the same work which
I am doing. These are their roles. Now we areaware of what they are supposed to do and how
they should be done,” Eskomala says.
Though supported by CRS, Eskomala's parliament and the hundreds across this southeastern coastal region are largely run by the children
themselves, evolving according to their own
perceptions of priorities and change. And they
are not alone: Suraksha's Community VigilanceGroups are the grown-up version. Both generations are taking part in a recovery program thatwill outlast any humanitarian relief timeline.

Endnotes
1
This article first appeared in the website of
Catholic Relief Services, see http://crs.org/india/
children-parliament/