Child Participation Award to Paudel

Kathmandu: The Child Participation Award 2079BS has been awarded to Mr Tilottam Paudel. It is awarded annually by Consortium Nepal, a network of organizations working on child participation.

Paudel is an active CFLG campaigner and he received this honour on the occasion of the Annual General Meeting of the network and Children’s Day, from the President of Human Rights Alliance, Top Bahadur Magar.

Paudel, who has been dedicatedly engaged in the field of children’s rights, participation, and CFLG for more than two decades, filed a lawsuit on behalf of Jagriti Child Club against the then Ministry of Home Affairs and Chief District Officer, Nawalparasi in the Supreme Court, demanding the legal recognition of child clubs following the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child at the age of 17 on 18 January 1999. The verdict made on 9 August 2001 was in favour of the legal recognition of the children’s institution. This case has been included in the course of LLB’s first year of Tribhuvan University.

This achievement marked the initiation of a process that has had an extremely positive influence on the promotion of child rights and institutional child participation in Nepal. Today, more than 25,000 child clubs recognized by different governmental bodies are active in various parts of the country. Paudel has secured credit for the establishment of the foundation with his devoted contribution since his childhood.
Paudel has also been contributing exclusively to the declaration and adoption of CFLG, girls’ empowerment, upliftment of the girl child, reducing inequalities, social protection, and so on.

A National dialogue program on civic participation and engagement for child participation was also organized on that very day. Milan Raj Dharel, former executive director of the National Child Rights Council, presented a paper in the interactive program. Dr Kiran Rupakheti of National Planning Commission, Arjun Bhattarai, General Secretary of NGO Federation Nepal, Member of National Child Rights Council Ms Roshana Khadka, Rabindra Gautam of Save the Children, Child Representative Muna Giri stressed the importance of Child Friendly Local Governance for ensuring Meaningful Child Participation.

Chairpersons and representatives of 100 organizations and networks across the country were present in the interaction programme. After receiving the award, Paudel shared his experiences of forming a child club and fighting for legal recognition and said that this honour has rejuvenated him and increased his motivation for further engagement in the field of child rights.

Paudel is currently active in the social sector as the chairperson of Jagriti Child and Youth Concern Nepal, founder chairperson (Immediate Past) and Strategic advisor of National CFLG Forum, chairperson of Social Protection Civil Society Network, and an executive member of the National Youth Council.