Dr Manjunath Sadashiva is co-founder and director of the Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA, estb. 2009), a Bangalore-based NGO which provides civic education programmes to schools and communities to sensitise and empower children and youth to develop into proactive citizens and nation builders.

Newspeg. As part of a school profiling exercise between January-March this year, 25 CMCA clubs (comprising class VIII students) of government schools in Bangalore conducted an audit of their educational entitlements such as free textbooks, uniforms, mid-day meals, nutritional enrichment and other facilities while also auditing the status of school infrastructure and amenities.

Genesis. CMCA became operational in 2000, as a joint initiative of the Public Affairs Centre and Swabhimana — both high-profile civil society organisations. Following its impressive growth in terms of outreach and resource mobilisation, the parent organisations granted it autonomous status. In 2009 CMCA was registered as a public charitable trust.

Unique selling proposition. “Based on our awareness that children are the most effective messengers and agents of change, we encourage the establishment of CMCA clubs in schools. Their members are trained to stimulate attitudinal change and preach best civic practices, by our team of senior volunteers who act as civic tutors. CMCA provides civic education services to government schools free of charge though private schools often provide transport and other facilities to our volunteers,” says Sadashiva, who has a doctorate in politics from The Technical University, Dortmund, Germany and acquired valuable experience as a lead consultant in the Johannesburg-based CIVICUS World Alliance for Citizenship Participation, and as visiting faculty of the Institute of Housing & Urban Development, Rotterdam.

“Through experiential learning, CMCA club members are sensitised to democratic and civic issues. In turn, they spread awareness through social campaigns and by interacting with the larger community beyond school boundaries. Currently, 364 CMCA clubs with 15,500 members have been established in 284 schools in six cities — Bangalore, Mumbai, Nagpur, Mysore, Hubli-Dharwad, Hosur, and 16 villages in Karnataka,” adds Sadashiva.  

Direct talk. “Indian youth are grossly ill-equipped to engage meaningfully with the state or understand and discharge their role as active civil society members. This grim scenario is further aggravated by uninspiring citizenship education found in outdated civics textbooks. In this context CMCA’s endeavour is to build communities of children who will be civic activist citizens,” enthuses Sadashiva. 

Future plans. CMCA plans to roll out its club programme in rural India and establish a fully-equipped resource centre. “This month we plan to start a six-month policy research effort in 11 states to measure civic and political competencies of young people country-wide. This will enable us to advocate and press for civic education reforms including a relevant, need-based, action-driven civics curriculum for schools,” says Sadashiva.    

Fair winds!

Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)

Also read: 26 NGOs Enabling Indian Education