Learning, from the SCRAP
A network of young journalists is set to report from the nook and corner of the country for a children news website. These young adults will take on India’s biggest problems and offer solutions to solve them too, reports SHILLPI A SINGH
Anushka Akhouri, Class 5 student of Apeejay School, Kharghar, is news-savvy but whenever she wants her daily dose of the feed, she tunes in to one of the news channels on television, listens to the cacophony for a while, and switches it off in no time. “Today, when we want to stay abreast with news, we have nothing substantial to lay our hands on. The news time on most of the channels is nothing but noise. It is deafening, where the anchors shout and scream, guests debate, and anchors jostling for audience attention but there’s no takeaway for us children," says 10-year-old girl. But come November 14, Akhouri, and many like her around the country will have a reason to cheer.
In a first of its kind service, a Delhi-based NGO, Going To School, is launching the Children’s Scrappy News Service, which would be run by the kids, for the kids. Under the platform of ‘Scrappy Kids’ as they are called, a handful of newsrooms across Bihar, Jharkhand, and Karnataka are already up and about, gathering news and ready to go online on their website (www.scrappynews.com).
These newsrooms have been built completely out of scrap, and will cater to the makeshift news service and news-talk-game show run by children. The wide network of kid reporters spread across the country will be managed by the team of anchors based in Mumbai headquarters.
Name wise
Lisa Heydlauff, founder, and CEO, Going to School, says, “Anyone can be scrappy. We created the news service to be a raucous TV show made in India, by kids, for kids, taking on the big and small problems as they see them, finding solutions and starting scrappy campaigns. Scrappy is stuff anyone can do. And the good news is that this kind of scrappy news is all good news. It’s about what you can do to make the world a better place. It is made in India for the world; it comes out of what we’ve been doing for years on the ground in government secondary schools, it’s a children’s call to action, a revolution that says we have no time left, let children lead.”
Format of show
The news service has an hour-long show. Each show will take on a new problem that’s important to kids and highlights grave issues concerning our society from such as the lack of playgrounds for children to play to playgrounds for the disabled, from global warming to recycling waste, among many others. The groundwork started way back in 2015 when Delhi-based NGO under the platform of ‘Scrappy Kids’ selected four kids from 700 candidates to tackle the various
problems and find a remedy. In the last two years, the kids have addressed various issues in the cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and across the states of Bihar and Jharkhand.
Studio talk
“We want to make sure adults sit up and take note of the issues we are addressing and begin to act on the same,” says 10-year-old child anchor Dheeraj. The newsrooms will have kid anchors invite guests like electricians, plumbers, carpenters, entrepreneurs, parents among others into the newsroom to discuss the pertinent issues and with top tips from their guests. The kid anchors from their newsroom will connect to kid reporters across India who would be interviewing adults to find solutions to the problems and spending the rest of the day with local heroes also referred to as scrappy heroes who have a solution to the various issues discussed.
Reporting Live
The idea is to use children’s voice to create a platform for change, and the staple focus will be on issues that affect children and how the one can find a solution to these problems that have a bearing on children and their future. Mumbai-based child anchor Valeska, 11, says, “This is a new perspective. This is what we feel is important and feel the need to talk to people who we feel will bring about change.”
The reporters at newsrooms built in Tulsipur Jamunia High School of Bhagalpur and at a local school in Jarang village in Muzaffarpur, went around interacting with locals from the surrounding areas and bring to light various issues such as the lack of toilets and water shortage, the collapsing of roofs and absence of boundaries in schools.
The team of journalists Rani and Alisha from St. Anne’s School in Ranchi visited the all-girls football club ‘Yuwa Academy’ in the Irba village and interviewed the team members. Alisha says, “Scrappy Kids all over the country are at the forefront of this revolution being spearheaded by children and for children for a better future.”