Satyarthi, an active visitor to Hyderabad

Though his contribution towards eradication of child labour has been of a great magnitude, the recognition that he received from the nation was a bit late. Mr Satyarthi has been a frequent visitor to Hyderabad and an active participant of many activities regarding child rights in the city. Child rights activists from Hyderabad, who’ve interacted with him at various seminars and conferences, expressed how he was an inspiration, who believed only in campaign mode that covered a larger canvass.

Hyderabad-based M.V. Foundation, an NGO working on child rights in the city, is one of the official members of Kailash Satyarthi’s brainchild, The Global March - Against Child Labour. During the course of this campaign, he frequented Hyderabad and discussed strategies with the members here. Volunteers of the M.V. Foundation said he was a humble person and lamented that it took so many years for India to finally learn about his contribution towards building a better tomorrow.”

Mr Mohd. Raheemuddin, a former member of the M.V. Foundation and a current member of the State Protection of Child Rights said, “In 2012, we had a national conference on Child Labour at Public Gardens where he was the guest of honour. It was also attended by Jayaram Ramesh and the then Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy.

He spoke to people on eradication of child labour and how he had filed many PILs in the Supreme Court regarding this. He mentioned that unlike what people thought, poverty was not the main cause of child labour, it was in fact lack of awareness, as people did not know about the education schemes for children.