CRY IIT
Way back in the 1970s, Rippan Kapur, a young airline purser, was driven by an extraordinary dream. His vision was to see a day when no Indian child would be deprived of rights as basic as survival, participation, protection and development. Like many of us, Rippan too was upset when he saw disparities between privileged and underprivileged children. He hated to see children begging and working as servants. Unlike most of us though, he did something about it.
In 1979, seven friends made a simple decision to change the lives of India’s underprivileged children and CRY was initialized. At its beginning being funded by a sum of 50 rupees and one dining table as the only asset, its current revenue stands at 36 crores. CRY opts to defend the rights of unprivileged children. It works to make the globe a comparatively safer place for children to dwell in. CRY approaches a problem through a three-phase engagement:
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First, CRY chooses to work in areas where the human development indicators are the worst in the country – seeking out the most marginalized communities and their children.
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It examines the situation of the children in these communities in a holistic manner, covering the entire gamut of issues that affect them.
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CRY then seeks to understand the root causes of the deprivation faced by children in education.
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Finally, CRY and its partners mobilize the local community to find long-term solutions to these root causes by making sure that the laws and policies that guarantee their rights are actually implemented.
CRY’s immense success is product of its flawless tactics and business strategies adopted by its members for its functioning.
“The learning over the 27 years that CRY has been in existence that the only sustainable change you can make is where you can – 1. Have policies that are genuinely child-friendly and 2. That you can ensure that communities are mobilized to ensure that those policies are implemented.
Private philanthropy alone is not going to address the root causes of the problems. And it is certainly not going to be able to do it on the kind of scale that India’s children need.”
- Raijain Mandarica (One of the key members of the group.)
CRY has a clear vision for the welfare of children. “We can either make our children safe in the world, or why not make world safer for them.” This idea lit the minds of its initiators and has been its motive since. CRY has also initiated a motive to acquire its financial needs from abroad and hence also works as a self-funded organization too.
CRY IIT ROORKEE CHAPTER
CRY IIT Roorkee was rooted in April 2K-12 and since then it has been one of the most active sites of its work. This group volunteers for development of neighbouring areas and participates actively in both in and off campus projects. Working in parallel with NSS at IIT-R, CRY is also involved in various clothes collection drives and routinely arranges various competitions to encourage their cultural creativity.
CRY IIT Kharagpur
A CRY IIT-KGP CHAPTER was introduced in 2K-10 by some of its students who were willing to do something for the social cause beyond their engineering. They promoted their work by organizing ‘Dan Utsav’ (The festival of giving away.)
CRY ISM-DHANBAD
Its arrival at ISM-DHANBAD has marked the beginning of protests to convert it into an IIT.
On concluding lines we wish this evergreen NGO to prosper more and thus help protecting rights of underprivileged children and making the dreams of its founder (Late Mr. R. Kapur ) come true.