1) The document summarizes the activities of the Citizens Association for Child Rights (CACR) in February 2014, which included attending various meetings, launching initiatives like a newsletter and LinkedIn page, and partnering on projects like computer literacy training in schools. 2) A key event was the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai announcing a budget of 2660.44 crores for primary education, though enrollment numbers continue to decline. 3) CACR continues to work with partners on initiatives like inclusive education and making schools and the city more accessible for those with disabilities.

1. February is the Month with the least
number of days BUT most work! Agreed?
Well, this seemed to be true for the event and
meeting intense month at CACR. On Feb 1st
CACR
members were invited to the Balak mela (student fair)
organized by MCGM where BMC students displayed their
athletic talent .The event had Mun.Comm., AMC ,DMC,
Education Committee chairman as chief guests. More
Details here.
On Feb 3rd
and 6th
The Deputy Edu.Officer
conducted the combined monthly meeting with all school
Headmasters-Hm’s and Administrative Officers-Ao’s.
CACR group members attended the meeting in K/E and
H/W wards and spoke about the progress of CLP-
computer literacy project. To make the project
sustainable we offered to train the teachers of 6th
& 7th
standards with Basic IT skills free of cost, a proposal
welcomed by the department. Moving forward with
implementation of CLP project students from VESIT-
Vivekanand Engg. College, Chembur volunteered to begin
the project in MCGM schools of Chembur and attended
the one day orientation program by Mr.Swapnil from
IITB. Ruia students also got oriented with the spoken
tutorial program structure on Feb 6th.
CACR launched its own company page on LinkedIn.
You can Follow our page & stay connected. The BMC
education department celebrated Sikhsan Divas on Feb
10th
on the same day our FIRST Newsletter was
launched. Missed it? CLICK HERE.
In the first newsletter of Jan’14 CACR reported that
BMC education department has made it mandatory for
Educational NGO’S occupying spaces in MCMG School to
display signages to that effect. BUT when CACR visited a
school in
Bandra, it was
found that
school did not
have such
signage
displayed
despite the
circular from
BMC.
DNA also
reported on
this issue on
Feb 11. See
the article
HERE.
DMC met
CACR and
ADAPT
members to
decide on the
training
program for
MCGM school
teachers and
HM’s about
inclusive
education.
More on this
in the article
by our
Partner
ADAPT below.
CITIZENS ASSOCIATION FOR CHILD RIGHTS
CACR NEWSLETTER FEB 2014
ALL THE ACTION of the MONTH
Feb 1:Balak Mela
Feb 3 and Feb 6: All HM-
AO- Dy.E.O meet in K/E
& H/W wards
Respectively
Feb 6: MCGM announces
EDUCATION BUDGET for
Primary education
Feb 6: Meeting with BCT
to review spoken English
project
Feb 6: IIT training
completed at Ruia
Feb 8:VESIT students
join CLP project with IITB
Feb 8: CACR company
page on LinkedIn
Feb 10: Launch Of First
CACR Newsletter
Feb 10: Sikhsan Divas in
BMC schools
Feb 11:DMC meeting
with ADAPT &CACR
Feb 11: CACR Impact-
DNA reports on No
Signages in MCGM
schools
Feb 16: MUSTRun
Bandra event 400
Municipal school kids
run
Feb 20: CACR Invited to
Discuss: “CSR in
Education-Ensuring
Impact” by Samhita
Feb 22: List of special
school children given to
education department
Feb 26th
:Flyer’s
distributed in Bandra-
Khar area for CLP
project.
Feb 28th
: CACR Website
gets NEW sections

2. Despite all odds and difficulties the H-WEST Federation,
CACR partners, conduct their Must Run Bandra event.
The event had around 400 BMC school children and
differently –abled participants for a 2 km Run along
with senior citizens.
The BMC School kids from Petit school and Gazar Bandh
School participated and found the event very
entertaining. See the event photos here & Read about it
HERE.
CACR members were invited to attend the discussion on
‘CSR in Education-Ensuring Impact’ by Samhita, an
Infosys initiative. Mr. Mirchandani attended on behalf of
CACR and reported that some of the speakers had
enriching experiences to share and it was a great pool to
brain storm on ideas and solutions.
Previously, CACR members had met DMC Mr.Dhamne
and Mrs.Gargi in connection with relocation
of special children from S.G.Barve Municipal School, Kurla
to a neighborhood municipal school. As per RTE act the
children should attend nearest Municipal school and all
schools should be disabled friendly. CACR along with
members from RC Ruia are trying to relocate special kids
to the nearest school convenient for students. The First
list of students was given to department on Feb 22.
The BIGGEST event for the MCGM Education
Department happened on Feb 6th
—if you guessed it was
the BUDGET-- you are 100% on the mark. So what’s the
new figure? More money despite poor unitization? Any
more guesses??? It is a whopping 2660.44 CRORES! For
PRIMARY education in MCGM schools. Yes, almost
equivalent to the GDP of a few European nations put
together. So continuing with an upward trend year after
year with the budget & also continuing the downward
trend with student enrollment. Will this year be any
different? Only time will tell. But I won’t keep you waiting
…The Budget break down is HERE.
1000 CACR handbills on the Computer Literacy Program
have been distributed by newspaper vendors from 16th
Road Khar right up to Pali Hill on Feb 26th
and we have
already received a couple of calls from residents
interested in volunteering. Let’s hope these calls
translate into volunteers.
Lastly, CACR website became more informative and
useful for people looking for information on RTE, GR’S,
Circulars, and SMC etc.
We have added a whole NEW Section that contains
documents with information on the above and much
more! Check it out HERE. Scroll down to see the footer
area on our home page.
We also added something for our partners….More in
our ‘What’s NEW’ section of this newsletter.
Well, I sincerely hope you find this edition of the
newsletter much more engaging, candid, and
informative. We hope to improve more next time.
Do write to us about your views and feedback.
Scroll down for stories from our volunteers, partners and
about the Budget.
Thank you for reading.
Dr.Richa Singh

3. YOU MUST KNOW 
Rupees 2660.44 Crores sounds like a lot of money, isn't it? (4291112000 USD)
That is the budget for the primary education in MCGM public corporation schools, where the number of
students is decreasing and budget seems to pile up each passing year.
MCGM imparts free primary education in eight different mediums in 1150 primary school to 3, 78,627
students which includes 863 students from 17 special schools for mentally challenged students.
MCGM also runs 145 Secondary Schools wherein 54,117 students are imparted free education.
There are 453 MCGM owned School Buildings and 62 rented School Buildings.
As on date there are 11,988 teachers for Primary Schools and 1407 teachers for Secondary Schools.
The Budget Estimate for 2013-14 which was Rs.2472.53 crores has now been revised to Rs.1894.61 crores, which
means….READ MORE

4. VOLUNTEER VOICES My first experience BY JZ
A good non-profit is always in search of sincere and dedicated volunteers. Just like any organization is. You put
out the volunteer request through email, social media, handbills, friends, and relatives and then wait for people
to join you for your projects.
People volunteer for various reasons: To give back to society, do good, earn some good karma, certificates,
resume’ building, make some money on the side and some come out to spend their weekends volunteering for
the happiness and joy it brings to be part of a positive change.
Today our Volunteer JZ shares the volunteering experience with us. It is pretty interesting, where it all began and
how it transitioned. Without further ado. Here is the article
“Everyone has thought of a fixed path in life—A good career in a fortune 500 company, money, and an early
retirement to start something new. Volunteering comes into picture only after retirement for most of us.
There is no time for anything else in our busy life. As it is our Social life, traveling, family, Job, keep us
occupied so volunteering is not even part of the equation. Leisure time is spent meeting with friends,
eating and drinking, and shopping. Social responsibility is left to the corporate companies with big
pockets and resources, rights?
This belief changed when I was struggling to get a job. As the famous saying goes “An empty mind is a
devil’s workshop”, I decided to volunteer for namesake, when an old friend told me about some
computer literacy project with IITB.
I had decided in the beginning that if it became too difficult I would give some excuse and leave.
Difficult situations can be handled only in jobs where there is incentive of promotion, money, and
recognition which clearly is not the case with volunteering.
So charged with that notion in mind I went READ MORE
~ The author of the article has earned her Engineering degree and MBA from Mumbai University and still
continues to volunteer on weekends along with her current job.

5. PARTNERS SPEAK
"The only disability in life is a bad attitude"- said author, Scoot Hamilton.
CACR and ADAPT together want to sensitize people about disability and make the city more disabled
friendly .CACR has partnered with ADAPT (Abled Disabled All People Together).ADAPT was formerly
known as 'The Spastic Society Of India'.
CACR was instrumental to help ADAPT to plan and initiate the 'sensitization program' for the
Municipal school Principals of Mumbai, India. The CEO and Trustee of ADAPT has written about their
future and current initiatives with CACR.
OVER TO VARSHA
Education and Accessibility
The Right to Education Act (RTE) makes it mandatory for schools to take in children with disabilities. As
a result, the government programmes of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) are now including children with special needs.
There are however challenges, the main one being access. Access does
not pertain only to architectural barriers that prevent persons from
disability from participating in mainstream life. It also refers to access to
education, to the curriculum, to employment.
The Persons with Disability Act mandates that the State create a barrier free
environment for person with disabilities and make special provision of the
integration of persons with disabilities into the social mainstream.
These include:
1. ramps in public buildings;
2. adaptation of toilets for wheel chair users;
3. braille symbols and auditory signals in elevators or lifts;
4. Ramps in hospitals, primary health centers and other medical care and rehabilitation institutions.
On the other hand, regular teachers and other professionals are not trained in inclusive
education. Since the ‘How’ of inclusion has still not been worked out, teachers find it difficult to deal with
differences in the classroom. The Training and Pedagogy department of ADAPT, set up by Founder
Chairperson, Dr. Mithu Alur in 1978 as there were no trained professionals to teach children with
multiple disabilities, has been conducting training programme in the field of education, disability,
inclusion in education and the community for various stake holders and has trained over two thousand
teachers, Principals, Master Trainers, therapists and parents.
We have trained regular teachers from schools under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in inclusive education.
Programmes have also been held for the Municipal Corporations of Greater Mumbai, Navi Mumbai,
Thane, Kalyan, Dombivali and Meera Bhayender.

6. We are therefore very happy to partner the H West Federation and the Citizens Association for
Child Rights-CACR to spread awareness about inclusive education and make the H-West Ward
a ‘disabled-friendly ward’.
Future Plans
A half day sensitization programme for the Principals of 1150 schools run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal
Corporation is planned in April 2014. This we hope is the first step to including children with disabilities into
their schools so that the Right to Education can be implemented and no child is left out of school.
Simultaneously, we hope to initiate the campaign for equal access undertaken by The ADAPT Rights Group
(ARG), set up by Malini Chib, Trustee, Acting CEO, disabled advocate and author, ‘One little Finger’
entitled ‘Mumbai Rising for Disability Access: We the People Too’
A group of young persons with READ MORE.
WHAT’S NEW 
1. WEBSITE UPDATES:
www.ngocacr.com got 2 NEW sections-ONE for the monthly newsletter HERE &
Other for IMPORTANT GOVT CIRCULARS, ACTS, REPORTS, RTI’S LIST OF SCHOOLS & DISPENSARIES on HOME Page
NEW?
so
WHAT'S

7. 2. OUR Partners get DIRECTLY LINKS embedded in their LOGO Names on our website. So the Visitors visiting CACR website can
have direct access to our Partner’s websites/Face book pages/other Social Media on Click of a button!
3. IITB has made a new introductory video on Basics of computer parts & uses for CLP project. It is available on YOU TUBE HERE
4. CACR Members were invited to Project "READ INDIA" by Rotary Club of Lokhandwala. On 8th February, Rotary Club of
Lokhandwala Kandivali set up a library by donating two book cases and 253 story books to Transit Camp BMC Hindi Shala,
Lokhandwala Township, Kandivali (E).
______________________________________________________________________________________
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
 Computer literacy project –CLP with IITB completed in Chakala mun.
School building in 4 schools.
 CLP Handbills to call for volunteers created and rolled out and
Distributed via Facebook, LinkedIn and Newspaper vendors
CACR Deeply Thanks Artist ANAGHA NIGWEKAR for creating this
Handbill
 EMAIL SENT TO AMC About the neglected conditions & lack of
accountability in BALWADI’S
 CACR is on Twitter @cacr6 Follow us HERE
 #World NGOday celebrated across the GLOBE on Feb 27th

8. STAY TUNED FOR MORE NEXT MONTH…..
 Enrollment drive handbills under creation for MASS enrolment drive for MCGM schools
 Social plays to spread awareness on municipal education planned
 Content for virtual classroom –exploring options! Got SOME ideas? write to us here
 Academic year ends in March third week -finish your projects in time!
 SMC’s to be reelected contact your HM to nominate your name
 CACR participates in DNA ican women’s run with 70+ BMC school girls
_____________________________________________________________
THAT’S IT FOR NOW
Thank you all for contributing to the Newsletter—Nitin, JZ, and Varsha.
I hope our readers find this edition even better than the last one.
NOTE: All letters in BLUE are hyperlinks which will help you to view the content/photos in detail when
you CLICK on them
**If you think our newsletter shouldn’t be in your inbox. Please CLICK HERE to unsubscribe. **
Have a Fabulous Weekend and Women’s day 
Best wishes,
Richa Singh
richa_singh@ngocacr.com
On behalf of team CACR
Citizens Association for Child Rights
www.ngocacr.com or www.cacr.in
Come Connect with Us!
Face book: https://www.facebook.com/CitizensAssociationForChildRights
Twitter: @cacr6
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/citizens-association-for-child-rights/
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