Sagar recently represented India at the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child session of September 2021. The confident youth who testified on the importance of government funding mental health services for economically distressed families knew first hand about domestic violence. A shy boy with few friends and a lackluster student when he first joined Butterflies’ mobile education program in 2014 at its Hathi Park contact point, Sagar had often toyed with running away from home to teach his alcoholic and abusive father a lesson. Today he has every reason to rejoice that he stayed put and stayed firm, with the steady guidance of his Child Rights Advocate.
Presently a 12th grade student through National Institute of Open Schooling, Sagar completed a basic computer course from Butterflies’ mobile school, got hooked on technology, and enrolled in the Hardware and Networking Course that the Habitat Learning Center runs for unprivileged children. Here, Sagar has earned good grades and received not one but two awards: Logger of the Year for activating a default account and Campaign Green Ride for Consistency and Regularity.
Sagar credits his participation in Butterflies’ children’s cooperatives with bolstering his confidence and sociability. His peers have elected him a Child Development Khazana (CDK) Volunteer Bank Manager; a Child Health and Sports Cooperative (CHSC) Child Health Educator (CHE); and a Bal Sabha (Children’s Council) Convener. These leadership positions have given him valuable experience in democratic decision-making. In true Butterflies spirit, Sagar now volunteers in Butterflies’ mobile school as a child computer teacher. His dream is to become a computer engineer; Butterflies is helping him to apply to university.
“Before joining the mobile school education program, I was not even aware about computers and their functions. It is only because of our mobile school that I learnt so much that I am now studying a professional computer course in Habitat Learning Center (HLC)”, says a proud (and grateful) Sagar.
Click here to learn more about Sagar’s United Nations speech.