A good leader leads by example, not just by commands and we at Children Of India make sure that the children we work with have the right examples to look up to. We achieve this by organising various sessions for the children of CIF where we call leaders from a wide range of organisations working...

Benjamin Franklin once said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” This is true for every goal one wants to achieve. Children of India, empowering children to be agents of change follows the same approach. The month of July saw one such preparation session where the movement leaders of the IMAGE project were...

I have been physically assaulted by my in-laws so many times that I have lost count”, says adolescent Raghavi* from a village in Belagavi, India. Married at the age of twelve, Raghavi began facing abuse during the time of her first pregnancy. She was just 15 then. “The first time my mother-in-law beat me was...

Just when the child marriage of a 12-year-old Sneha* was about to take place, the Regional Secretariat staff of Bagalkot, Karnataka, accompanied by the movement leaders of our IMAGE , reached the venue and stopped it.  Sneha, who has grown up seeing her cousins get married at the age of 10 to 12  in her...

Women and girls always occupy the forefront when it comes to gender-based interventions. While it holds true that most gender discrimination is faced by women, the fight for a world with gender justice cannot be won by mobilising girls alone. Keeping this in mind, our project IMAGE which works on the empowerment of child brides,...

“I was married at the age of 15 after my father passed away”, said an adolescent Renuka from a district in North Karnataka. “I grew up with a lot of dreams in my heart, but after marriage I was not sure if I could fulfil them”, she added. Every year, 1.5 million girls under the...

“I have always been interested in working with fabrics”, said seventeen-year-old Kamala*. Married at the age of 13, Kamala thought she wouldn’t be able to fulfill her dreams.   Things took a turn for the better when she was introduced to the IMAGE  project.      “I expressed to the team that I wanted to...

Devamma from South Karnataka is an extremely young mother at the age of fourteen.  Devamma has been in a constant state of struggles since childhood as her father left her mother because she gave birth to three girls. This caused her mother to take her own life followed by which Devamma had to shift into...

On March 8, IMAGE celebrated International Women’s Day by conducting a session with 135 early married girls, Civil Society Organisations and other stakeholders. Held in the districts of Belgaum and Bidar, the session revolved around the theme of ‘Women in Leadership’ as given by the United Nations to create a Gender-Equal world.  Through different activities...

Supreetha who was once struggling to speak up now says, ” I can share all my problems openly now and I’m super motivated to achieve my goals.” Supreetha, a 19 year old Early Married Girl is a movement leader from Amalapur village among many who attended the Movement Leaders Orientation Workshop. As part of empowering...