Child tracking system launched
21 March 2009
Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 21, 2009
Child tracking system launched
Staff Reporter
| Pilot project to be initiated in six districts and it will have comprehensive database |
— Photo: K. Murali Kumar
SAFETY NET: Samuel Paul, Chairman, Public Affairs Centre, Bangalore (left), Nina Nayak, Vice-President, Indian Council for Child Welfare (second from right), and Anna Feuchtwang, CEO, EveryChild (right), launching ‘Child Tracking System’, in Bangalore on Friday.
SAFETY NET: Samuel Paul, Chairman, Public Affairs Centre, Bangalore (left), Nina Nayak, Vice-President, Indian Council for Child Welfare (second from right), and Anna Feuchtwang, CEO, EveryChild (right), launching ‘Child Tracking System’, in Bangalore on Friday.
Bangalore: To provide a comprehensive child safety net and track the movements and status of all children aged below 18, EveryChild, a non-governmental organisation based in U.K., in association with Child Rights Trust and Soft Net Interactive, has launched a “Child Tracking System”.
In the first phase, a pilot project would be implemented in six districts of Karnataka.
The system, which was inaugurated by chairman of Public Affairs Centre Samuel Paul at the Jawahar Bal Bhavan on Friday, had been designed and developed to track the movement and status of children in all villages of the six districts by creating a comprehensive database.
The database would cover everything beginning right from birth registration, immunisation, school enrolment to information on migration of children, missing and run away children, status of orphan children in villages, panchayats, taluks and districts.
A new technology, “Talkative Neil”, has been specially designed for the tracking system, which would enable government, panchayats, child protection agencies and child rights groups to prevent, rescue and protect children from separation and violence.
Giving details of the system, Executive Director of Child Rights Trust Vasudev Sharma said the pilot project would cover the districts of Belgaum, Bellary, Bagalkot, Raichur, Koratagere and Bangalore.
Pointing out that the system would strictly follow the codes of data protection, accessibility and confidentiality, he said the data created would be analysed and reports would be generated for different stakeholders based on it.
The overall analysis of the situation of children would enable child protection agencies and government departments such as Social Welfare and Women and Child Development to chalk out programmes and policies ensuring protection of children and their rights, he said.
The State Government’s Department of Women and Child Development has initiated a similar initiative to track the beneficiaries of Bhagyalakshmi insurance scheme for every girl child born in poor families.
Anna Feuchtwang, Chief Executive Officer of EveryChild, said the launch of the system was the first step towards making the “invisible and nowhere” children visible in child protection frameworks.
Vice-president of Indian Council for Child Welfare Nina Nayak, Samuel Paul and Shyam Kedare from Soft Net Interactive spoke.