Courage on Crutches: Indian Kids to Speak At UN
"I demand better education for the disabled children. Why shouldn't they study with abled children? Why this discrimination?" Khrim asked.
Another participant, Poonam Kumari, 13, will raise her voice for ending child marriage based on her own struggles and experience.
"I ran away from my home two years back because my parents were planning to get me married. If I hadn't run away I would be living a miserable life just like my two sisters," Poonam Kumari, who is from Bihar, told IANS.
Though only two children of the group can understand English, they are determined to make their voices heard from an international platform. For most of them this is the first visit abroad and that too to the UN.
Harita Kumari from Tamil Nadu can only speak in her native language, while Nayan Sarki from Kalimpong, a hill station in West Bengal, can only talk in Nepali. But both know what they have to say in front of the world audience.
While Harita wants equal rights for the girl child, Nayan is keen that India eradicates hunger.
Anees from Shillong in Meghalaya wants India to end child labour, especially for those working in the mines in Jaintia hills in the northeast.
"You should go and see the condition in which these kids live in the mines. Most of them are trafficked and forced into this kind of job which is very dangerous," Anees, 15, told IANS.
Similarly, for Surbhi and Risabh from Delhi, their demands are for equality and an adequate platform for the many deprived children.
For 14-year-old Swarna Laxmi, who is blind, it will be her second chance to speak at the UN this year.
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