Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania on Friday said that the historic “Baal Satra” will be organized on June 12 to sensitize the children about political literacy, other burning issues, and citizens’ rights.

In this session organized by Digital Baal Mela on the occasion of “World Child Labor Day,” children from across the country will raise their voice on political and social issues in front of the world.

These children will represent all the districts of Himachal Pradesh. The children have been selected under the 3-month-long campaign ‘Baccho Ki Sakar Kaisi Ho’ organized under the aegis of the Himachal Pradesh Education Department in association with media partner The Statesman.

During the ‘Baal Satra’ 68 selected Child representatives will interact as the Chief Minister, Leader of Opposition, Deputy Chief Minister, Speaker, and Cabinet Ministers for a day at Vidhan Sabha Bhavan, Shimla.

Under the campaign 1,085 government, non-government and non-school going children registered and sent videos on their problems and their suggestions between April 1 to May 25.

Entries of children had been received from around 9 states across the country, including Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Assam, and Bihar.

For the selection of these children, the team of judges constituted by the Digital Baal Mela evaluated the children on the basis of their suggestions, the seriousness of the problem, and the method of keeping them.

The selection process was divided into a total of 3 parts, in which 585 children who fulfilled the video criteria were selected in the first part.

In the second phase, 285 children were selected by the panel on the basis of the children’s expressions.

During the selection process, the children spoke on many serious issues and shared important suggestions these included career counseling for the youth for increasing unemployment in Himachal, marketing of crops of Himachal farmers, weekly promotion of sports, empowerment of state buses to prevent traffic and small efforts for the improvement of education.

These suggestions will be discussed in detail by the children in the “Children’s Session”.

In this campaign sponsored by LIC, 20 dialogue sessions were also organized for children, in which veteran leaders, educationists, artists, and officials of Himachal shared their life lessons with more than 50,000 children and satisfied their political curiosity.

The poster of this campaign was launched by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and while releasing the same he wished the children the successful conduct of “Baal Satra”.

In March, Rajasthan-based organization The Future Society was instrumental in organizing the country’s first-ever “Baal Satra” in Rajasthan.

The Future Society proposed Digital Baal Mela to organize this campaign in Himachal Pradesh to increase the political awareness of children.