Vision

“A society where children enjoy their rights.”

The differences of class, gender, religion, disabilities, etc. are valued as part of diverse community and cultural heritage. All people have the opportunity and capacity to fulfill their basic needs and society enjoys the participation of all people at all levels of the democratic process.

– Empower children, youth and their families living in difficult circumstances
– Empower civil societies and government institutions to promote child rights and peace education
– Improve the quality of life for low-income women by providing handicraft-related skills training and employment with fair Trade.
– Institutional development and capacity building at the organizational level.

Mission

“We believe that every child has natural and social rights, capacities and responsibilities to develop their full potential as human beings.”

In its work to improve the situation of children and youth, CN is first and foremost committed to working with their families and communities, helping them to address the problems of their daily lives and generating access to local service providers. CN facilitates processes that empower working children, youth and their families to assume active and decisive roles in solving their own problems by strengthening their life skills, improving their confidence and utilizing their existing capacity, which will result in the most effective long-term improvements in their living conditions. When families are empowered in such a way, and involved with community support networks, they will be in a better position to take an active role in their long-term future and demand the services that they need. CN believes that it will achieve genuine and lasting social change only by working closely with civil society and focusing the majority of its work at this ‘grassroots’ level.

Goals

– To strengthen the capacity of children, youth and their families living on the margins of society so that they can meet their own basic needs.
– To provide the support needed for social integration, and to help people break the cycle of discrimination based on caste, disability, gender and social status.
– To build up the capacity of CN’s members and volunteers so that they can effectively fulfill the above-mentioned goals.

Objectives

– To increase access of children in especially difficult circumstances and their families to the services around them.
– To increase socio-economic conditions for families through group formation and practical activities.
– To provide the opportunities for children to be good citizens through group work, practicing non-violence, anti-corruption and non-discrimination based on caste, gender, disability and social status.
– To mobilize civil society, service providers and other concerned people for the protection and care of children in difficult circumstances.
– To be self-supported through the production and selling of handcrafts, facilitating training workshops and developing partnerships among like-minded agencies and persons.
– To develop, test and document strategies for facilitating self-help community development and self-supporting activities.
– To strengthen relationships with related organizations so that work in this area can be replicated and scaled, duplication can be avoided and resources can be shared.

Approach

CN has a holistic approach to social work and sees the family and local community as its main focus and resource base to reach its goals. CN believes that in order to achieve improvements in children’s conditions, the family must be absolutely tied into the effort. CN works at the “micro” level with children and their families, at the “mezzo” level with schools, wards, health care providers, other NGOs and cooperatives and finally at the “macro” level by advocating, lobbying and training for children’s rights, equality for all the people and improvements in the social services provided to the poor.