I Light Global's Initiative on starting Migrant Children Day

The people of I Light Global have started the initiative of celebrating the Migrant Children Day on 25th June, every year. Its aim is to provide awareness of the migrant children and their issues to the masses.

India’s independence came off at a rocky start. A nation free from the influence of a former European Superpower. It also faced some of the biggest challenges of migration i.e. the Partition of India. The death toll is almost closer to one-third of the people died in The Holocaust during the Second World War. To top it all off, many people have migrated from what is now Pakistan.

So the problems regarding migration existed even in the waning days of the colonial era. Post 1991 reforms improved the economy to the point that India is now one of the largest economies in the world stage. At the same time, the country has a lot of demons to deal with. Religious strife, caste conflict, China and Pakistan, Kashmir, and every internal and external threats existing in the country. One such problem is the issue regarding migrant community.

One report states that India’s 37% of its population are internal migrants. One out of five of these migrants are children, which by estimation is almost 93 million.

India’s literacy rate might have increased since 1991, but it still has a long way to go. In the case of migrant children, the situation is unfortunate. Their parents who too are migrants either leave their children at home villages or they take them to the cities.

On paper, they are enrolled in schools. In reality, they don’t attend the education institution for months. It’s a common knowledge that our education and schooling systems in India is beyond abysmal. Our schools and education system have become mockery for the students.

Schools lack quality in education, as well as basic training for the faculty and staff. The facilities are obsolete and dystopic in the internet era. Government funded schools and rural schools have become laughing stocks at this point. There is also distance gap if a child lives in rural area.

As for private schools, their prices are as high as Middle Eastern oilfields because of their fees. In the Covid era world, not a lot of children have access to the internet, phones, tablets, notebooks, and even pencils.

The worst part is, many people have stopped caring about them. Most are either bystanders or people fighting over petty political narratives on social media. The world leaders are focused on Ukraine rather than their than their own borders. The politicians and political parties are busy on party politics and he said, she said game. And the majority of people either claim to be apolitical as if they are Paul Maria Remarque or they’re just busy pretending to care about socio-political issues.

None of the parties seem to care about the children, the migrants, or the people in general. Apathy somehow became a virtue in this downtrodden, politically messed up planet of ours.

So it’s important that people start paying attention through other means. Some of them are trying to make a change, so that we could reflect and react on the plight of the migrant children in the fast-paced environment.

I Light Global is providing such difference by providing education and food to the children. They’re also bringing awareness to the parents so that it could raise the education and literacy of the children. Many people are also joining in to this by providing yoga, blog writing, dentistry, etc. to the children. It’s not much compared to millions of children in India but at least, smaller things can often bring bigger impacts as we’ve seen in history.

It’s very uncertain what the future might bring us. Many people suggest that India won’t attain 100% literacy rate until 2060. No one knows if we can beat hunger.

At the same time, social media is increasingly becoming the Big Brothers of the 21st century. In other words, the platforms are slowly transforming to the pseudo police states with mass censorship. But with massive awareness of social media usage and blog writing, people can share and aware the masses regarding the importance of educating and feeding the migrant children which will not make our society altruistic but morality can no longer take a backseat. It makes our society more decent and caring in the long run.