Our Responsibility to Children

ORC is a Non Governmental initiative formed to address the issue of rising socially deviant behaviour among adolescents. The pilot project ORC is being run in Calicut City.
Our Responsibility to Children aims to achieve the objectives through massive involvement of people from various walks of life in Calicut City. A series of activities are being implemented to facilitate this.

ORC aims to empower the community to

1. Prevent socially deviant behaviour including criminal offences and illicit use of drugs among adolescents
2. Detect socially deviant behaviour early and to take corrective measures
3. Evaluate and socially rehabilitate young offenders
4. Facilitate the collaboration of various government departments like Police, Social Welfare and Education, various nongovernmental organisations and academic institutions in the above activities.
   
   

Background
There are a certain number of young people who get into conflict with the legal system in every part of the country. The common issues include offences like theft, robbery, destruction of public property, alcohol and drug use, violence etc. Calicut city has seen a rise in recorded crimes involving young people in recent years.
For example, in the last eight months alone, City Police had arrested 32 teenagers directly involved in 17 cases of stealing multiple motorbikes, 10 young people in four separate cases of stealing of gold and four youngsters involved in two cases of stealing of multiple computers.  Teenagers have been arrested also in cases of stealing cash and mobile phones in the last few months. It has also been noticed that a much larger number of young people are involved in criminal activities like selling stolen goods, destruction of evidence etc related to these crimes.
These figures seem to be the tip of an iceberg. In addition to the alarmingly large number of recorded offences by young people, there are indications to show that a large number of teenagers including girls in various campuses in the city are involved in socially deviant activities including illicit use of drugs.
Without constructive and positive interventions from the society, a good number of young offenders become entrenched in a criminal life outside mainstream society. The results include early mortality and loss of productive contribution to society in addition to harm to others in the community. Youngsters in conflict with legal system are also potential targets for recruitment by anti social and terrorist individuals and outfits.
Research in many countries has shown that most of these people can be brought back to main stream with proper guidance, monitoring and support from the civil society. Young people who get into trouble are often troubled children: those who come into contact with the criminal justice system often have multiple needs and difficulties which can be identified and addressed in order to reduce their offending behaviour. With proper motivation and supp A wide platform will be established with active participation of Police personnel, officers from the social welfare department, civil society organisations, lawyers, teachers, professionals and students from Psychiatry, Psychology, Social work and Sociology and other interested people. Cadets from the Student Police Cadets will also play a major role in the initiative.

Vision

making a positive impact on children and empowering them to succeed

To be the torch bearers in creating awareness and providing the knowhow to parents and teachers to be positive influencers of young minds and the society in general .
 To  create a new generation of youngsters who are  aware of right and wrong and  the bad  influences they would come across during their formative years.
To  train and equip them to face the challenges of the world they live in and to  take informed decisions for life and living.

Mission

Preventing young people from getting into crime and substance abuse and diverting those at risk into constructive activities and better opportunities; mentoring those in the system and advocating on their behalf; and resettling those leaving custody so that they do not re-offend.