Focus Areas

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 Child Protection

Children experience insidious forms of violence, exploitation and abuse. It happens in every country, and in the places children should be most protected – their homes, schools and online. Violence against children can be physical, emotional or sexual. And in many cases, children suffer at the hands of the people they trust.

Children in humanitarian settings are especially vulnerable. During armed conflict, natural disasters and other emergencies, children may be forced to flee their homes, some torn from their families and exposed to exploitation and abuse along the way. They risk injury and death. They may be recruited by armed forces. Especially for girls and women, the threat of gender-based violence soars.

Harmful cultural practices pose another grave risk in various parts of the world. Hundreds of millions of girls have been subjected to child marriage and female genital mutilation – even though both are internationally recognized human rights violations.

No matter the circumstance, every child has the right to be protected from violence, exploitation and abuse. Child protection systems connect children to vital social services and fair justice systems – starting at birth. They provide care to the most vulnerable, including children uprooted by conflict, poverty and disaster; victims of child labour or trafficking; and those who live with disabilities or in alternative care. Above all, protecting children means protecting their physical, mental and psychosocial needs to safeguard their futures. 

Child Labour

Economic hardship exacts a toll on millions of families worldwide – and in some places, it comes at the price of a child’s physical safety. Nearly 1 in 10 children across the globe are subjected to child labour, almost half of whom are in hazardous forms of work.

Child Marriage

Child marriage robs girls of their childhood and threatens their well-being. Girls who marry before 18 are more likely to experience domestic violence and less likely to remain in school. They have worse economic and health outcomes than their unmarried peers, which are eventually passed down to their own children, further straining a country’s capacity to provide quality health and education services.

Migrant and displaced children

Millions of children are on the move. Some are driven from their homes by conflict, poverty or climate change. Others leave in the hope of finding a better life. Far too many encounter danger, detention, deprivation and discrimination on their journeys, at destination or upon return.

A child’s right to education entails the right to learn. Yet, for too many children across the globe, schooling does not lead to learning.

Over 600 million children and adolescents worldwide are unable to attain minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics, even though two thirds of them are in school. For out-of-school children, foundational skills in literacy and numeracy are further from grasp.

This learning crisis – the rift between the levels of learning children receive and those they, their communities and entire economies need – hit a global scale even before the COVID-19 pandemic brought education systems to a halt.

Around India, children are deprived of education and learning for various reasons. Poverty remains one of the most obstinate barriers. Children living through economic fragility, political instability, conflict or natural disaster are more likely to be cut off from schooling – as are those with disabilities, or from ethnic minorities. In some states, education opportunities for girls remain severely limited.

Even in schools, a lack of trained teachers, inadequate education materials and poor infrastructure make learning difficult for many students. Others come to class too hungry, ill or exhausted from work or household tasks to benefit from their lessons.

Compounding these inequities is a digital divide of growing concern: Some two thirds of the world’s school-aged children do not have internet connection in their homes, restricting their opportunities to further their learning and skills development.

Without quality education, children face considerable barriers to employment and earning potential later in life. They are more likely to suffer adverse health outcomes and less likely to participate in decisions that affect them – threatening their ability to shape a better future for themselves and their societies.

Growing up in a clean and safe environment is every child’s right. Access to clean water, basic toilets, and good hygiene practices not only keeps children thriving, but also gives them a healthier start in life.

Despite COVID-19 putting the spotlight on the importance of hand hygiene to prevent the spread of disease, three billion people worldwide, including hundreds of millions of school-going children, do not have access to handwashing facilities with soap. People living in rural areas, urban slums, disaster-prone areas and low-income countries are the most vulnerable and the most affected.

Key facts

· Worldwide, 2.2 billion people still lack access to safe drinking water.

· More than half of the global population does not have access to safe sanitation.

· Three billion people do not have access to handwashing facilities with soap.

· Still, 673 million people practice open defecation.

The consequences of unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene on children can be deadly. Over 700 children under age 5 die every day of diarrhoeal diseases due to lack of appropriate Water, Sanitation and Hygiene services. In areas of conflict, children are nearly 20 times more likely to die from diarrhoeal disease than from the conflict itself.

Water

When children don’t have access to clean water, it affects their health, nutrition, education and learning abilities, thus impacting many aspects of their lives.

Everyone has the human right to safe drinking water. This holds true in stability and in crisis, in urban and rural contexts, and in every country around the world. When children don’t have access to clean water, it negatively impacts their health, nutrition, education and every other aspect of their lives. Girls, women and people living with disabilities are particularly impacted.

Sanitation

Adequate sanitation is essential to childhood survival and development, improving children’s education, increasing productivity and building resilience in the face of disease and disaster.

India being the developing Nation, the majority of the population belongs to the rural area, and their lives revolve around the agricultural sector for employment and means of livelihood. Farming and agriculture have always been one of the essential economic activities in India. Near about two-thirds of the population engaged in agriculture and agriculture-related activities, it is crucial to understand India’s plight and why they are struggling. For a few decades, the working environment and the agricultural scenario are stagnant, and it is no more a profit-making sector like before. It was somehow the need of the hour to dig into the real issues relating to agriculture and rectify the same through our NGO’s being the Agriculture NGO in India.

Non-government organizations and voluntary action have been part of the historical legacy. This term, “non-governmental organization” first came into use in 1945. Since then, the role of NGOs actively highlighted in every stream. SOCIETY FOR DEVELOPMENT ACTION (SDA), is one such NGO that has been vigorously involved in making the lives of the farmers better and become be their right hand in all the phases of farming. 

SOCIETY FOR DEVELOPMENT ACTION (SDA) is an NGO in India and is working wholeheartedly to do away with minor and significant Agriculture sector issues. Our primary aim as an NGO in India is to provide services to those farmers who need the same. We consider our NGO to be capable enough to reach out to farmers’ problems, inaccessible areas, induce innovation in their working patterns, and achieve goals on their behalf, which was only a distant dream for the farmers. WE are doing our best to create close links to the poor communities to understand their conditions better and work on them accordingly. 

The main task of the SOCIETY FOR DEVELOPMENT ACTION (SDA) is to upgrade the working conditions of the farmers by initiating better learning platforms and widening their knowledge zone to do better in the sector. Our experts and leaders shall be available for them around the clock to feed them with the required skills and knowledge necessary to excel in the modern times. we are also trying to develop, assist, promote, execute, train, and offer consultancy/advisory in current agricultural, horticultural, and farming activities in an eco-friendly, sustainable environment to the curious farmers. we shall also impart non-formal education and vocational training to teach the farmers better farming techniques.

At SOCIETY FOR DEVELOPMENT ACTION (SDA), Community Development programmes are aimed at making women more independent. This is done through skill development, social get-togethers and small scale business support platforms.

We have observed that when women come together, they display higher levels of confidence which makes a difference in their emotional well-being. As part of our community development initiatives, we impart various vocational trainings to the women from different communities to enhance their self-dependency and develop entrepreneurial skills in them.