A happy childhood - many children are deprived of this fundamental right. The state of civilisation of a society can best be judged by the way it treats its children, especially the children of the poor. However when we look at India's children today, we face a dismal situation. It should be natural to provide children with space and time to play, to sing, and to laugh. Childhood is a time to explore ones own abilities and limitations, to develop skills and interests. Yet many children struggle to survive, they live in extreme poverty, are not properly dressed and are malnourished. Young boys have to help to earn money for their family and girls have to do the housework until they are married off in an early age, to someone they might have never seen before.

Rural children face a particularly saddening situation. They are not even in the fringes of the educational system. The system itself is handicapped with insufficient facilities and untrained teachers. The existing opportunities and facilities for children in the villages are inadequate and uninspiring. The primary schools are understaffed, frequently without a teacher. Where teachers do exist, they are faced with classes with 130 students and their only way to deal with this situation is regular physical abuse. Their interest is limited to literacy and the dropout rate in these over crowded schools is very high.

These children are the most affected by the present situation of the education system where we work. In the past, children were taught the necessary skills by their parents or the elders or grand parents during daily life. However since the rise of globalisation and modern economy many parents have to work the whole day and don't have time to look after their children and teach them anything. Therefore most of the parents want their children to go to school and they hope that they will be able to live a better life when they grow up. The children are first generation learners, which means that their parents are themselves illiterate. Therefore the parents are often unable to give their children the necessary support. They don't know what school is all about and cannot guide their children through the difficulties they face in the education system. The children are left alone with extremely bad schools and unmotivated teachers, who beat them up whenever they don't understand what they are supposed to do. The children live in constant fear, that makes it nearly impossible for them to learn. Only fearless children ask questions, learn, and understand.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) draws attention to four sets of civil, political, economic and cultural rights of every child. These are:

The Right to Survival which includes the right to life, the highest attainable standard of health, nutrition and adequate standards of living. It also includes the right to a name and a nationality.
The Right to Protection which includes freedom from all forms of exploitation, abuse, inhuman or degrading treatment and neglect, including the right to special protection in situations of emergency and armed conflicts.
The Right to Development which includes the right to education, support for early childhood development and care, social security and the right to leisure, recreation and cultural activities.
The Right to Participation which includes respect for the views of the child, freedom of expression, access to appropriate information, and freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Children reach 5th or even 7th standard examinations, and still cannot read and write. They spend a lot of time in school, time which is basically wasted and in the end they have neither learned reading, writing, or even basic maths, nor have they picked up any other skills from their parents, which would be the foundation for their later lives. The girls, who will get married early, don't know how to cook, clean the house and look after the children, so they will be beaten up or even thrown out of the house by their future husbands or mother-in-laws. The boys have not learned anything that would enable them to earn a living, for example how farm or a craft, like weaving, carpentry, etc. They become total misfits, in their village world as well as in the "modern, educated" world.

At some point parents realise that their children are not learning anything in the schools. Because they want their children to learn at least something and also often because of immediate economic pressure, they want their children to

• help with household chores
• participate in agricultural operations
• go for agricultural labour
• learn a trade like weaving on a full time basis
• involve in many other subsidiary occupations like cattle grazing, fuel wood gathering, etc.

Other problems for these children are that they often live in very difficult family situations and under very poor living conditions. The children often have difficulties doing their homework in an overcrowded room, where the whole family lives within a few square feet, the TV or radio running on full volume and their father (quite often drunk) beating up their mother. They have to cope with inadequate nutrition, lack of facilities for hygiene and facilities for health care, which affects their growth and development. Lack of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities are common problems, which lead to a variety of illnesses. Ultimately a large number of children drop out of school, either because of the above mentioned economic burdens or because the schools are unattractive due to lack of resources, abusive teachers and inadequate facilities.

Thus, the poorest children are the likeliest to drop out of school. They remain illiterate and without education their chances further diminish to move upwards in society. Their children will be in the same situation: poor family background, illiterate parents, low social and economic status: a vicious circle of poverty leading to new poverty.

It is 7 o'clock in the morning. A new school day has just begun for Aparna*, a 10 year old girl in Timbaktu School. After washing and dressing, she joins the other children for a good breakfast, something many malnourished children in her village don't enjoy every day. Today her first lesson is English, followed by Math, Telugu and Sciences. She likes all her subjects and says that she loves her teachers, because they explain everything patiently to her and make her understand even the most difficult things.

In the afternoon Aparna* joins a group of other children, who learn different kinds of handicrafts, that they enjoy a lot and enables them to earn a little bit money in school. Later she has to water the plants in the school garden and at 4:30 p.m. she has time for herself, to play, to read, to explore the world ...

Only 1 ý years ago life was very different for Aparna*. She lived together with her extremely poor parents and her younger brother and sister in Chennekothapalli, a village nearby. Aparna*'s father used to beat up her mother regularly and the whole family was scared of him. One day Aparna* was sent to gather fuel wood. She came back to find that her mother had died. She had been murdered by her father and he had already buried her, trying to cover up his crime. However Aparna*'s mother was a member of a Thrift Group, which was set up by Timbaktu Collective. This Group didn't believe in the natural death of a 26 years old woman who had been perfectly healthy a few days before. They contacted the police and demanded an inquiry. After many difficulties, the police finally took up investigations and Aparna*'s father was imprisoned. So Aparna* and her brother and sister had within a few days lost both parents in a traumatic experience and the question remained - what would happen to them. Her grandparents were old and poor, unable to look after three children.

In this situation it was decided that the children would go to Timbaktu School, where they could live, learn and in a peaceful, caring atmosphere and slowly recover from their terrible experiences.

Today Aparna* is laughing and singing again. Although she is still sometimes afraid in the night, she has found a new home and is allowed to have a happy childhood.

Later Aparna* hopes that she will be able to go to college, to either become a police inspector or a collector, to punish all the bad people in Chennekothapalli or to become a teacher in Timbaktu, so that she can help other children to learn.

*The name of the child has been altered to protect her privacy

• Adequate living conditions
  The first concern of our effort is to provide the children with the basic necessities: nutrition, hygiene facilities, health care, and a place to live.
• Protection
  Another important objective is to give the children a place where the feel safe and protected. Where there is nobody who wants to beat or abuse them. Where they don't fear severe punishment all the time and don't feel threatened by the people around them.
• Development
  We endeavor to give children the possibility to develop their own abilities and interests. The children should have space to play, sing, dance, laugh, ... The children should learn a broad variety of different skills, not only academics but also tailoring, drama, carpentry, clay modeling, stitching, painting, music, ... Of course it is also important to offer them a good education, that enables them to compete with the children from government schools and allows them to go for higher studies.
• Future
  We want to give children choices to shape their future, give them opportunities to have a fulfilled life, so that they will be happy and able to give happiness to other people. Children who seemed to be caught in poverty should get a chance to a different life, a better life. These children are the adults of tomorrow and if we want to create a better future, we have to start with today's children.

The Alternative Education Programme of the Timbaktu Collective was initiated on 14th November, 1992, in the shape of a non-formal learning centre called Prakruthi Badi (Nature School) at Chennekothapalli. Today we run 3 day schools (Prakruthi Badi, Shyapuram Badi, and Venella Badi), one evening school at Chinnapeta called Chinna Badi and one residential school (Timbaktu Badi) in Timbaktu. The number of students has been steadily increasing during the years. In an attempt to share our facilities with children who are part of other schools, we have started a Children's resource centre at Chennekothapalli which is open to any child from in and around the village. Prakruthi Badi remains the central education centre, as the only school with advanced classes up to the equivalent of 10th standard.

The cadre consists partially of senior teachers, who came from farther away and were attracted by Timbaktu Collective's Vision of an Alternative Education. Some of them volunteered and now work for very little money. The next level of the teachers, consists of a group of young people, who were recruited from the local villages and trained by the senior teachers and through orientation trips to other schools. All teachers attend regular internal trainings and exposure visits.

In the afternoon classes the children acquire skills in woolen embroidery, tailoring, embroidery, bag making, drawing, clay work, gardening, music, folk dance etc. The teachers have become good resources persons in some of these skills. The teachers taught most of the skills.

Skill training is given a lot of importance because the children enjoy them and by getting orientation in a variety of skills, they explore their potential and improve their creativity. Some activities give opportunities to children to see various academic concepts in a different context. A practical benefit that is foreseen is that for some children the skills they learn at school may become sources of livelihood in future. There is also a potential for earning while learning, which has already started on a small scale.

Parents of Timbaktu children contribute Rs. 25/- per month in either cash or the equivalent amount of grains. The grains given are converted into cash. These contributions are put into a children's fund. We keep aside this money for giving it back to children when they leave our programme to either go for higher studies or for making a living through some economic venture.

The program gives hope to children who otherwise would not have any chance at all. It gives happiness to the poorest of the poor, to those neglected and mistreated. Every laughter of a child is a spark of hope for the future of mankind.