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<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=new+delhi">New Delhi</a>, the capital of India boasts of a vast slum population also regarded as one of the most neglected sections of the society. 
 
The children however are the worst victims of the prevalent rampant ills, such as child-marriage, abuse and police brutality. 
 
But despite these tough conditions and poverty, there are an ample number of children who want their life to be more than just this- they want it to have a purpose. They want the world to hear their voice. 
 
And, in 2003 the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=ngo">NGO</a> Chetna brought these children together and launched <keyword id="1663733" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Balaknama">Balaknama</keyword> (voice of children), a quarterly <keyword id="6393964" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="newspaper">newspaper</keyword> that talks about the issues faced by children who earn money begging, doing menial jobs and rag picking with 35 reporters in New Delhi in 2003. 
 
Now, it has spread to seven cities, with almost 10,000 children working as journalists and writers for the publication. Tens of thousands make up the readership for Balaknama. 
 Eighteen-year-old Chandni is the editor of the newspaper and she holds editorial meetings twice every month. In total, there are 14 reporters, all of whom are either <keyword id="6406617" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Street-children">street children</keyword> or have worked as child labourers in Delhi and neighbouring states. They track Delhi and neighbouring states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. 
 
Thanks to the NGO, Chandni was able to join a school and did not have to go back to her previous life of street-performing and rag-picking. Chetna's outreach program also gave her a stipend to and trained her in reporting. 
 
 
 
"I am very proud of editing this paper because it's one of its kind in India. Children whose childhood have been robbed, have gone hungry, begged, been abused and forced to work, write about other children who are going through similar tribulations," Chadni adds. 
 
Most of Balaknama's stories deal with the lives of street children - of employers mistreating their maids, police harrasing children at railway stations - interspersed with stories of hope. 
 
Like 17-year-old Vikas Kumar put it- the idea is to get everyone to treat street kids as equal citizens and get their voice heard. 
 
"If a Bollywood actor's dog gets hurt, it will be breaking news and will be covered by all newspapers and channels in India. But when a street kid dies on a railway platform or in an accident, no one seems to care,” he said to Al Jazeera. 
 
Vikas ran away from his home at nine when he couldn’t take the wrath of his abusive parents any longer. For the next few years, he worked as a rag-picker at a train station and also fought drug addiction, coming out clean and ending up as a reporter for Balaknama. 
 
Lucky for them, the circulation of the newspaper has gone up from 4,000 to 5,500 copies in the past one year. We hope that these kinds continue to make a difference and create awareness 
 
The newspaper is financed and published by the NGO and has been priced at two rupees. 
 
 
 
Image credit: Indiatimes

Meet the children from Delhi who run India’s only
newspaper published by street kids

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The Indian newspaper Balaknama, or "children's journal," pays nearly 90 reporters — all kids — to report on the COVID-19 health crisis and other issues.</li><li>The children all come from the <keyword id="6367743" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="slums">slums</keyword> or streets of Delhi, and the newspaper is helping to teach them skills to lift them out of <keyword id="45057" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Poverty">poverty</keyword>.</li><li>During the <keyword id="43587" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="pandemic">pandemic</keyword>, millions of children around the world have dropped out of school and been forced into <keyword id="185859" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="child-labor">child labor</keyword>.</li></ul>For the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/01/23/133109831/taking-a-walk-into-the-lives-of-indias-street-kids">18 million</a> children who live on the streets of Delhi, <keyword id="3658" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="India">India</keyword>, and in slums across the country, opportunities for success are hard to come by.But a nonprofit called <a href="https://chetnango.org/">Chetna</a> has been helping children out of poverty through the power of <keyword id="58267" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Journalism">journalism</keyword>. In 2002, Chetna launched <a href="https://balaknama.org/">Balaknama</a>, a newspaper produced by underprivileged kids that reports on the challenges they face in everyday life. The name means "children's journal" in Hindi.Shanno, the senior editor of the monthly publication, says it now has a network of over 90 reporters, all children. "These children live amongst us, on the streets. They work at restaurants and factories or they beg or sell recyclables," Shanno said. "And these kids are very social, street-smart, and natural leaders."<div type="image" title="balaknama" height="1080" width="1920" msid="79156418" hostid="261"></div>Now, after a nationwide lockdown, the young reporters are back on their beats, reporting on life amid the pandemic. October's editorial meeting was held in a park to promote social distancing — the first in-person meeting the team held in six months because of coronavirus health precautions.Some of Balaknama's reporters are illiterate and collect <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="news">news</keyword> on the ground. Those who are literate, like 18-year old Jyoti, then write up the stories."Before this I used to work in the streets. I used to sort out trash and beg on the streets for money," Jyoti said. "I've never been to school, but I educate myself. I have books from the 10th-grade level."<div type="image" title="11" height="1080" width="1920" msid="79156425" hostid="261"></div>The kids distribute the paper for free — 5,000 copies in Hindi and 3,000 in English. They mostly hand them out in their own neighborhoods, where they want to make a difference and inspire other children."In my experience, a guy who has a stall selling water, his kid will also end up in the same job because he doesn't have the resources to get an education," 17-year-old reporter Deepak said. "So I distribute the paper to them so they can show it to their children and say, 'Look, kids like you have done so well for themselves.'"Balaknama pays reporters a stipend of about 5,000 rupees, or $65 dollars a month, to cover food, phone, and transportation costs. But the real reward for the kids is seeing their names in print.Balaknama moved online when India went under lockdown in March. The virus has killed nearly <a href="https://www.mohfw.gov.in/">130,000 people in India,</a> the third highest death toll in the world. <div type="image" title="4 (1)" height="1080" width="1920" msid="79156428" hostid="261"></div>The kids were given phones and asked to report remotely, sending their dispatches via WhatsApp. But Shanno said many of the kids are still vulnerable in other ways. "Now because of the coronavirus, when kids are begging on the streets, they are being told, 'You must have the virus and we will catch it too, so stay away,'" Shanno said. "People push the kids around and swear at them. So these are the kind of issues we wrote about." And Shanno added that many of them are being pressured to work other jobs amid the pandemic."They told us about how more kids are being forced to work, how they are quitting their education, and how some kids who never worked are now begging on the streets," she said. "It was very sad for us to learn that these children who we had worked so hard to send to school were now working because of COVID-19.<div type="image" title="9" height="1080" width="1920" msid="79156431" hostid="261"></div>In fact, the UN estimates that <a href="https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unicef-executive-director-henrietta-fores-remarks-press-conference-new-updated">24 million children</a> will drop out of school worldwide due to the pandemic. Many of them will be forced to take up jobs, raising concerns of a spike in child labor. Shanno herself is no stranger to that — she said she remembers working at a clothing factory as a child, working around the clock for $4 or $5 a week. Now she's getting a degree in social work. "I'm the only girl in my family who is well-educated and has created an identity for herself," she said. "And my mom feels proud, too."Shanno hopes that Balaknama can also change the lives of other kids — one story at a time.

A children's newspaper in India is employing underprivileged kids to report on the COVID-19 crisis

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Meet the children from Delhi who run India’s only newspaper published by street kids

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A children's newspaper in India is employing underprivileged kids to report on the COVID-19 crisis

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