From Al-Jazeera English: Witness looks at the work of the Children's Development Bank (CDB) in India - a special kind of bank, run by street children for street children.

About the Children's Development Bank (CDB):

1. Description (Issue, Strategy, entrepreneurship, coach and mentor)

Street and working children constitute one of the most disadvantaged section of society as a result of homelessness, lack of family support, struggle for survival, vulnerability and exclusion from basic services such as health and education. Most of them suffer from malnutrition, hunger, health problems, substance abuse, harassment by the city police and railway authorities, physical and sexual abuse and a general neglect from civil society. Many of them from extremely poor families live a hand to mouth existence, earning meager amounts in rag picking, shoeshine, portering, street vending, as domestic or casual worker in shops and restaurants. They live their lives from day to day. And although they may have "dreams", there is no encouragement to plan for or to save for their future. Indeed there is no safe place where they can keep their money, and the temptation is to "blow" what they have earned on short-term gratification.

The Children's Development Bank is an innovative way for creating an alternative to the lifestyle for street and working children, which is dictated by their need for day-today survival, their vulnerability and a short-term perspective. Thus, it is important to provide opportunities for saving for their future and encouragement to do so by creating a safe place. Equally important is to create a way of channeling those very entrepreneurial skills that are needed for survival and directing these into income generation and employment, which can be linked to skills training being provided by organizations working with these children. Creating funds that are available to street and working children, many of whom have no identify card or birth certificate or address, and cannot get credit for setting up a business activity from existing sources, providing opportunities for positive self-development through designing, managing, leading and acting as advocates for street children's banks.

The Children's Development Bank focuses on improving the lives and the prospects of street and working children, empowering these children and equipping them with life skills needed for their development, linking simultaneously to economic enterprises.

Principles:

Development of children is ultimate in CDB; CDB is life skill education Imparting / strenthning skills in, Decision making, Confidence, Peer Intercation, Leadership etc; Every street and working child has a right to save and access money in time of need; Every child has freedom to start any positive economic activity; CDB encourages children to engage in developmental activity e.g. education; CDB will support children to realize their dreams; CDB will be democratic and transparent; Bank is a living entity-it is open to changes for the benefit of children


Focussed Children's initiative:

The Bank is "Managed" by children, in effect as a cooperative. under the facilitating of adults Members set all rules for CDB functioning. These rules cover criteria for membership, eligibility for size of advance available, interest paid on savings and charged on advance, repayment terms and guarantees, etc.

The children's savings is recycled into advance. Enterprises may fail, children may run off to another city, or unrelated factors such as ill health or a family crisis (for those who are in touch with their families) may occur. That members of the Bank take responsibility for dealing with such issues is an important part of the process. It also makes the young people running he Bank extremely careful about how they offer advance and to whom; on the one hand they want to encourage loan-taking so that children can set up an enterprise, but on the other hand, they do not want to see their members' savings lost or the Bank fail due to bad advance. Soft advance is provided to children to continue education or technical training.


CDB's Line of Action:

Encourage saving:By providing a safe place to hold their money, which the children identify as a key benefit and by encouraging regular saving and accumulating funds for their future.

Develop sustainable livelihoods:Offer loans to members of the Bank who are saving regularly. This is equivalent to a traditional cooperative banking, but with two important distinctions:

Build Life skills:The CDB provides an opportunity for the children to develop the life skills such as team working, taking responsibility, self-confidence, communication skills, and project management skills.

Build Entrepreneurial skills:Create a way of channeling those very entrepreneurial skills that are needed for survival and directing these into income generation and employment, which can be linked to skills training being provided by organizations working with these children.

Capacity Building. A network for training, support and learning has been created. In order to facilitate the development of the CDB programme, a structure for providing training and support to the Banks is established, which encourages sharing and cross-learning and the involvement of children and their experience and ideas in this process.

Research and Documentation is an integral part of the intervention to strengthen the knowledge base on the issue of child protection and also to develop evidence based advocacy strategies.

Ensure sustainability. With efforts to set up mechanisms to carry forward strategies tested and lessons learned, CDB is designed and implemented in partnership with the community and civil society.

Ensure replicability. CDB intends to provide a simple and successful model for enhancing the lives and livelihoods of street and working children both because it provides a channel for saving and because it makes loans for livelihoods. This is a replicable model, which can then be extended further


Innovation within Innovation: Concept of Mentor and Coach

Mentoring (Guiding) relates to the realisation of an original business idea in terms of putting it into practice. Successful entrepreneurs (Mentors) identified from within the immediate environment of the children support them to: choose the right business; select the occupation involving minimal risk and more benefits; get requisite training; solve business related problems

Coach (trainer) is the one who supports the adolescent at all levels and at all times to initiate and run the business.


Unique Features:

Providing, for the first time, a safe, controlled place for street children to deposit their earnings for the benefit of them all.

Facilitating the running of a bank which invests in micro enterprises run by working children.

Placing control of the day to day running of the bank and the decision making process in the hands of the street children with significant facilitation by adults.

Offering the opportunity for the banks to make advance and grants to support education, health and recreational facilities for street and working children.


You can watch the second part here, and you can read more about the Children's Development Bank here.