Spice May issue ipad LR

CARING
CHILDREN
CHANGING ONE LIFE AT A TIME
SINCE ITS INCEPTION IN 1979, CRY HAS CHANGED THE LIVES OF MORE THAN 20 LAKH UNDERPRIVILEGED CHILDREN BY
ENSURING THEIR BASIC RIGHTS OF SURVIVAL, DEVELOPMENT, PROTECTION AND PARTICIPATION
BY PUNITA JASROTIA PHUKAN
Puja Marwaha, CEO
IF THERE IS ONE NON
GOVERNMENTAL
ORGANISATION (NGO)
that immediately comes
to mind when talking
about underprivileged
children, it is CRY
(Child Rights and You). Formerly known
as Child Relief and You, CRY (www.cry.
org) began as a somewhat audacious
dream with a starting capital (if you like)
of ` 51, only to metamorphose into a
mecca for India’s dispossessed and
disenfranchised children.
In a country where millions of
children are forced to work at an age
when they should be attending school,
and where, as per recent analysis, close
to 1.4 million child labourers between
seven and 14 years of age are illiterate,
CRY, along with its partners in the form
of grass-root NGOs, parents, and
communities, has been working for over
three decades now to restore basic rights
of living, learning, growing and playing
to over 20 lakh underprivileged
children.
Rippan Kapur, a 25-year-old airline
purser, along with six of his friends,
founded CRY in 1979 with the aim to
make a difference to the lives of
underprivileged children in the country.
104
MAY 2017