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Alternate Media - Children’s Newspaper
National Children Times
"In our newspaper we report about our perception of a problem" Pintu, 14 years, Child Journalist
In the year 1996 the members of Bal Mazdoor Union (Child
Workers Union), a working and street
children's collective in Delhi, India, came out with the idea of publishing
their own newspaper, to highlight their concerns that were otherwise
neglected by the mainstream media. Thus they facilitated formation of an
editorial board comprising of reporters, editors and publisher with children
between the age group of 9-16 years and eventually initiated a bimonthly and
bilingual (Hindi and English) newspaper, Bal Mazdoor Ki Awaaz (Child
Workers' Voice).
 In the year 2001 the editorial team of Bal Mazdoor Ki Awaz decided to expand
their initiative to other parts of the country and in the month of May, 2001
"Workshop on Children's Production of their own Newspaper" was
organized with 40 rural and urban children associated with 12 NGOs from 7
states of India. The outcome of this workshop was children from each NGO
group started publishing their own bi-monthly (once in two months)
newspaper.
In February 2002, a follow-up workshop was organized by the editorial team
of Bal Mazdoor Ki Awaz to share and learn from each other's experiences and
also to discuss the issue "How to take this initiative forward".
Child delegates of the follow-up workshop unanimously felt the need to have
an identity as journalists and therefore decided to organize themselves into
a "Rashtriya Bal Patrakar Manch" or the National Child Journalists' Forum (NCJF).
In the year 2003, NCJF was consolidated. First issue of "National
Children's Times" was launched during 4th World Social Forum held in Mumbai,
India, in January-04. 10,000 copies (5000 Hindi and 5000 English copies) of
NCT reached out to children, adults and NGOs of various parts of India
and abroad. Since then it is being published on a regular basis.
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