A Mother’s Day Meeting with Kailash Satyarthiji 
by Srijana Angdembey 

83,000 Children! This is the number of children Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi has freed from slavery.  As a mother of two young children, I am humbled, grateful, inspired and deeply moved by his work. It was an honor to get to meet Kailash Satyarthiji with members of the Bay Area 360 plus group on none other than Mother’s day. . Getting to bring my 10 month old with me was the icing on the cake.

Kailash Satyarthi, founder of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save childhood movement), has been crucial in fighting for, and protecting, the rights of children not only in India but  in 144 countries. In 1998, he steered a global march against Child Labor to the grounds of International Labour Organization (ILO), which led to the adoption of convention No. 182 which committed the world to eliminating the worst forms of child labor.

On Mother’s day, May 8th, 2016, at the Indian Community Center in Milpitas California, he spoke about the urgency in war-torn Syria and the gut wrenching situation in refugee camps. In Syria, “young girls were sold for sex slavery for price less than that of a pack of cigarettes”, he recounted. You could sense the restlessness in his voice as he spoke of the humanitarian emergency at hand. Peace, he believes, “is a fundamental human right of every child” and it is our collective duty to stop this brutality against the most vulnerable population. “Every child should be free to be a child,” says the man who has become the voice for so many voiceless children he has risked his life to rescue.

When a young boy in the audience asked him about his source of motivation, he responded with a story of a boy who was known as “kitabh bank walla”. Sathyarthi, even as a young boy, stood for and worked to provide opportunities for others less fortunate than him. As a 6-year-old entering school, he spoke up for the boy sitting outside the school grounds cleaning shoes for a living. He would later create a book bank in his village so young kids like him could access textbooks and did not have to drop out because of lack of books. Wow!

Sathyarthi believes that children can be architects of change. He is committed to launching a worldwide youth campaign  engaging that will engage 100 million children and youth in  helping 100 million children out of slavery. There are 168 million child laborers across the world, out of which 85 million are in hazardous occupations. It will take a global movement to make an impact on their lives. Sathyarthi encouraged the children present in the audience to join him in ending child slavery, in a heartwarming response, young kids pooled their allowances together to donate to his work.  I am definitely going to engage my kids in this very worthy endeavor. I hope others will follow suit.

Sathyarthi says, “India is a country with hundreds of problem but 1 billion solutions”. What I understood this to mean is that India’s greatest strength is also its people and if one Sathyarthi can change the lives of 83,000 children, imagine what a few more can do.

360+ members meet with Nobel Prize Winner Kailash Satyarthi on Mother's Day 2016

360+ members meet with Nobel Prize Winner Kailash Satyarthi on Mother’s Day 2016

Kailash Satyarthij and Sufi, Srijana's youngest daughter

Kailash Satyarthiji and Sufi, Srijana’s youngest daughter