18-yr-old Gurgaon girl taking child rights issues in India international

KOLKATA: As an 18-year-old Indian girl moving out of war-torn Ukraine with her family, Ayushi Gupta was perturbed by the first-hand experience of the crisis. But what shook her the most was some parents leaving behind their children with special needs to flee the war zone.


Something changed in her that day, says Ayushi, who went on to set up the International Youth Collective which works on advocacy for child rights and had volunteers from across the world.

A student of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program and currently based out of Porto in Portugal, Ayushi formed the International Youth Collective on October 20, 2022, and has conducted webinars and research endeavours involving young girls from Russia, Netherlands, Italy, Japan, UAE among others.

"The idea was to start by introducing the issue of child rights in India to these girls who had no idea about it," says Ayushi. "I lot of these girls wanted to join the cause after the first webinar. We believe that with acknowledgement comes change. If there's no acknowledgement then you can't really expect change to happen," she adds.

But lack of acknowledgement is a serious hindrance, says Ayushi. "We have faced this issue while fundraising for the fight against child labour, child marriage or children being forced to drop out of school. People were not very welcoming of the fundraiser because they believe that even raising funds to fight against injustice towards underprivileged children was a political agenda," says Ayushi.

This disturbed Ayushi. The teenager, whose family hails from Gurgaon, says, "Politics should not exist in everything. Humanity should."

This incident motivated her to continue with the journey of promoting child rights around the world and in India "because this shows solidarity to the children in India". She adds, "We're rooting for them to have a second chance at life and that they really didn't deserve what happened to them."

The collective, still in its nascent phase, is working in collaboration with Child Rights and You (CRY) in India -- promoting their campaigns, fundraising and also spreading awareness on the issue of child rights. While the collective gives CRY an international stage, it helps the collective understand the issues of child rights in India deeper, better.