Several years of working with children’s issues has taught CRY America that the ‘child rights approach’ is the most effective way to ensure sustainable change. The United Nation Convention on Child Rights has provided an international framework and we have used this framework for our work. We have tested this approach and established its efficacy. These rights are also guaranteed by the Indian Constitution and India signed the UNCRC in 1992. Continued violation of children’s rights is simply unjust.

We are changing our name as part of an effort to widen awareness of and enlist greater support for children’s rights.

The Relief approach addresses the symptoms of the problem – malnourishment, children out of school, children in the work force, female infanticide etc. The rights approach identifies the underlying causes of these problems – caste, gender and class biases, livelihoods and absent or indifferent governance and finds long-term solutions by ensuring children and communities are informed and empowered to seek solutions.

The relief approach treats children as objects of sympathy needing our help. The rights approach recognizes them as citizens who are entitled to all that has been promised to them under the Indian Constitution and by the United Nations Child Rights Charter

ou cannot ask a child who is starving, out of school, or being abused and exploited to wait for long-term change to happen. However, even in their ‘relief’ work, be it with balwadis [pre-primary centers] and non-formal centers or disaster affected communities,

CRY America supported Projects are designed to ensure the longer term objectives of community empowerment towards sustainable change.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) grants children 4 basic human rights to survival, development, participation and protection. By signing this Convention, a country acknowledges children as a distinct group of individuals whose concerns need to be addressed separately under law and policy. India signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1992. The four groups of child rights can be understood as: 

THE RIGHT TO SURVIVAL
To life, health, nutrition, name, nationality. The right to survival entails the right to a healthy life. This means that children should be rightfully assured of adequate nutrition and quality healthcare and their names be registered as citizens to access state nutritional schemes. Infant and child mortality should be curtailed and malnourishment should not be a concern.  

THE RIGHT TO PROTECTION
From exploitation, abuse, neglect. Right to Protection entails that all children be nurtured and protected from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation in any form. It ranges from a child’s right to be protected from having to work, to face any kind of physical or mental abuse and to have a caring, secure family. 

THE RIGHT TO DEVELOPMENT
To education, care, leisure, recreation, cultural activities. Every child has the right to development that lets the child explore her/his full potential. To an education that not only leads the child to a path of learning but promotes understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and should contribute to maintenance of peace. 

THE RIGHT TO PARTICIPATION
To expression, information, thought, religion This is a right where the child is involved in the decisions taken about her/his life and has the space to develop & express independent thought.

Children do not live in isolation. They belong to families, communities and society at large. They are always the most vulnerable victims to any situation be it poverty, natural disasters, displacement, social biases and prejudices. It is impossible to find long-term solutions to the issues confronting children without addressing these root-causes.

In the case of India, a child may not be in school for multiple reasons. Ensuring she is not only enrolled in school, but stays there and gets an adequate education requires addressing many underlying problems. 

In the past 17 years, CRY America has witnessed the incredible change that is possible when children, parents and local governance come together to ensure their children’s rights – to survival, development, protection and participation. We have learned that the only way to make lasting change happen is to adopt what we call the ‘child rights approach’. 

First, looking at children’s issues in their entirety, rather than through the narrow prisms of education, health, child labor, child abuse, foeticide/infanticide etc. then, seeking the underlying root causes of the deprivation – gender, caste, livelihoods, displacement and the like and finally, mobilizing each local community to find long-term solutions to these problems by ensuring the relevant laws and policies that guarantee their rights are actually implemented. 

CRY America’s role is to amplify the voice of India’s children to reach large numbers of people of Indian origin and Americans to enlist their support for this cause.

We do this by:

– Supporting and partnering with NGOs at grassroots levels, mobilizing people to address the root causes that leads to violation of child rights
– Building awareness on children’s issues through the media.
– Providing a channel for people to become part of this movement through our civic engagement/ volunteer action programs.
– Providing a channel for individuals, corporations, associations and foundations to become part of this movement through our fundraising programs. 

To enable people to take responsibility for the situation of underprivileged children, especially Indian, and so motivate them to seek resolution through individual and collective action thereby enabling children to realize their full potential, and people to discover their potential for action and change. 

A happy, healthy and creative child whose rights are protected and honored in a society that is built on respect for dignity, justice and equity for all.

CRY America believes in creating long-term, sustainable change. Hence, CRY America addresses children’s rights and issues holistically. We believe that the solutions to issues that affect children lie not just in direct interventions with the child but beyond as well – in the child’s immediate environment; in the socio-political structures and processes that affect the environment. Therefore, our focus is on direct action with children, community mobilization efforts and activities towards influencing macro structures. And through these efforts we believe that we can bring about irrevocable change. 

The power of collective action! At CRY America we believe that if each one of us does whatever we can, there is no task which is too big or difficult. 

CRY America operates on the values of:

– respect for human dignity
– collective action
– transparency
– accountability
– non violence
– secularism 

The organizations that CRY America supports are selected for their track record, the issues they work with and the impact on the community they work with. We also realize the criticality of ensuring that the resources are utilized by grantees optimally and effectively.

To ensure this, CRY America utilizes the grant management services of CRY, a premier Indian NGO for child rights, to ensure the quality of each of these interventions. CRY has developed highly effective selection, planning, monitoring and evaluation systems in it’s 42 years of operation.

CRY America also supports best in class Projects for children’s development in the USA.

The reality of India more than 74 years after independence is that millions of children have their very survival threatened on a daily basis – malnutrition, illiteracy, child labor, preventable diseases, abuse and exploitation.

CRY America works towards restoring basic rights to underprivileged children, primarily those in India. The organization channels the concern, goodwill, time, money, skills and civic responsibility of individuals and organizations in the US towards child development projects in India and the USA. The idea is to create effective grassroots change movements that will empower marginalized communities to build sustainable futures for their children.

To grow to significant scale, achieve long-term sustainability and maximize their impact they often need support – financial, program design, organization building, training, information support and networking. This is what CRY America defines as capacity building.

CRY America utilizes the grant management services of CRY India to ensure that the quality of supported initiatives is enhanced and that the funds are utilized optimally. CRY has developed over the last 30 years highly effective selection, planning, monitoring, evaluation, systems that include:

•     Stringent partner selection processes including pre-funding site visits.
•     Half-yearly field visits, financial reports, grant disbursal based on reviews
•     Financial Risk Management Module to help identify projects where funds may be at risk due to poor financial management.
•     Ongoing review of accounting systems by project partner, regional CRY teams.

Exhaustive and well-recognized impact parameters are used in reviewing and planning processes that enables grantees and CRY America to set clearly defined, measurable long term goals. Impact parameters are selected that highlight the status of children and ultimately reflect the socio- economic status of any community that CRY America is working with.

At CRY America, we’ve learned that permanent change is only possible when children, their parents and their communities are informed about their rights and engage with their local government bodies to ensure the root causes of their immediate problems are solved. To achieve this we partner and support grassroots projects who work with these communities. 

CRY America partners with CRY India to ensure that the grants to India Projects are utilized effectively and that the quality of their work is enhanced. Non financial support includes project-planning, financial management, material requirements, perspective-building programs, baseline data establishment, organizational development, training for skill building, information support, and developing promotional materials.

Yes – we do. We believe that the issue of underprivileged children across the world needs support. We have supported Save the Children’s Hurricane Katrina’s relief and rehabilitation efforts. We also support best in class organizations such as the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and Children’s Rights Inc. Our focus for selecting US Grantees includes the issues of child health and child abuse & neglect.

We believe that all our donors, volunteers and supporters must be informed about CRY America and it’s activities. This includes information about money raised, spent, disbursed to projects. We declare our financial results to everybody through our Annual Reports and publish our accounts on our website for public viewing.

We report on the progress of supported projects and achievements through direct mailers and newsletters through the year. Details of supported projects are also available on our website at all times

CRY America partners with individuals, corporations and foundations to raise funds. Some key fund-raising strategies include direct mail, telecalling and events. It has also established a website http://www.cryamerica.org/ as an effective fund-raising channel that accepts general donations, emergency based donations, payments for events. Individual donors continue to be CRY America’s primary support base.

In support of its fund-raising activities, CRY America has developed, implemented and trained its staff in a completely customized software program, Donor Management System (DMS), which enables effective donor servicing and analysis to study effectiveness of fund-raising strategies/ campaigns.

The core of CRY America is volunteer action. CRY America runs on the strength of her volunteers. Volunteers are a team of dedicated people willing to give their time and skills to promote and build CRY America and to raise resources for underprivileged children.

Each volunteer is a child advocate. He / she is also a brand ambassador of CRY America. He / she works among his/ her colleagues, friends, family and local community to raise awareness about children’s issues and help harness resources. Every effort of the volunteer is a building block to achieve the ultimate goal of CRY America – ensuring a secure future for children!

At CRY America, volunteers can participate in the following way….
– Join a CRY America Action center in their city.
– Start a CRY America Action center in their city, if one does not exist.
– Help organize events and help sponsor them.
– Help bring in new volunteers to increase our volunteer base.
– Spread the word about CRY America among friends, colleagues, family and local community.
– Talk about CRY America to the organization/institution where he/she works.
– Put up posters and distribute CRY America leaflets at your office, other offices, clubs and other public places.
– Help CRY America organize events nationally – across various cities through our action centers.

We refer to a local volunteer chapter in a particular city in the USA, as an Action Center. Each AC is led and managed by a Volunteer Leader and built on the principle of civic engagement towards restoring to children their basic rights.
Given below are locations where we have AC’s:

Antelope Valley
Arkansas
Atlanta
Austin
Bay Area
Boston
Chicago
Delaware
Houston
Kentucky
Los Angeles
New York
New Jersey
Orange County
Phoenix
Raleigh
San Antonio
San Diego
Seattle
Texas A & M University
Texas Tech University
Orlando Student Chapter

We have a small corporate office in Boston which was set up in 2005. This office is the central coordinating office for all mail and storage of key accounting, legal, statutory & compliance documents. This office is based out of our accountant’s office in Braintree, MA where our CRY Accountant is also located. Our CEO is based in New York. Other full time staff includes our Fundraising Director (East Coast) based in NJ and our Fundraising Manager (Texas) based in Houston. The positions of Volunteer Manager, Grants Manager & Fundraising Manager (West Coast) are currently not filled.

CRY America Board (including CEO) ==> Executive Leadership Group (including Volunteer Leaders and Staff) ==> Action Center Leaders ==> Volunteer Core Groups across Action Centers ==> Volunteers 

The Trustees are responsible for the overall governance of CRY America as specified in the Bylaws and specifically, in the areas of CRY America policy, statutory & legal compliance, financial oversight and approval of business plans towards building a strong and relevant organization. The Volunteer Representative is nominated to the Board through a process of elections among volunteer leaders. The Board comprises of the following persons:

• •     Shefali Sunderlal (President & Program Director)
  •     Ravi Krovidi (Honorary Trustee & Treasurer)
  •     Percy Presswalla (Honorary Trustee, Board Secretary & Volunteer Representative)
  •     Puja Marwaha (Honorary Trustee)
  •     Vatsala Mamgain (Honorary Trustee)  

The Executive Committee provides collective leadership and direction at the national level.

Members include full time staff and volunteer leaders. It is responsible for:

• •     Upholding and internalizing CRY America’s mission, values and objectives
  •     Developing and executing plans to achieve CRY America’s goals
  •     Retaining our current supporter base and increasing the base of supporters across all functions
  •     Accountability of CRY America’s operations and resources towards making the organization more efficient and effective.

 Provides expertise, support and advice to CRY America in specialized and critical areas of need (as defined by the organization in various stages of its life cycle) and is committed to helping the organization grow.

CRY America’s belief in transparency and accountability is not limited only to the publishing of Annual Reports. It spans an entire gamut of operations. What it means in practical terms:

At the project/ initiative level: There is intensive involvement of CRY’s development support team in strategy formulation and planning by the partner. The projects are encouraged to discuss budgets/expenditure with the core team and the community as well. This is followed by monitoring of programs on a quarterly/half yearly/annual basis including field visits to meet the project staff, children and community groups. Future grant disbursals are based on these reviews. There is also an ongoing review of accounting systems by the partner, regional team and an external financial agency.

 At the organizational level this is reflected in internal management and accounting systems and organization planning / review processes.

 CRY America engages professional assistance in ensuring proper book keeping and financial systems. The organization’s performance including it’s achievements and project impact is disseminated to donors, volunteers and the public through direct mailers, annual reports, newsletters and published through the year on our website cryamerica.org 

CRY America’s accounts are audited annually by an external financial agency, as per US accounting norms and the Audited Report is available on our website for public viewing. 

CRY America does not work directly in the field with children. CRY America identifies the areas and issues of most critical need and provides grassroot projects working in those areas financial, organization building, training and networking support. CRY America accords higher priority to remote areas, socially and economically marginalized communities and those working with difficult issues. All CRY America supported projects must also be secular, non-violent, transparent, and inclusive in their functioning.

CRY America does not work directly in the field with children. CRY America identifies the areas and issues of most critical need and provides grassroot projects working in those areas financial, organization building, training and networking support. CRY America accords higher priority to remote areas, socially and economically marginalized communities and those working with difficult issues. All CRY America supported projects must also be secular, non-violent, transparent, and inclusive in their functioning.

Apart from supporting urban programs that work with street children, CRY America also addresses the root causes of migration that force children and their families onto the streets of Indian cities. Further, CRY America’s partner CRY, works with the Indian government to develop better policies for juvenile homes and laws relating to children in conflict with the law. Similarly, CRY America seeks to ensure that physically and mentally challenged children receive equal treatment.

There are several reasons why we have chosen not to connect donors directly to children in CRY America supported projects.

The first, and perhaps most important reason, is our belief that the support we provide children is theirs by right and they should not be expected or made to feel obliged to us or to donors for the support they receive. Building self-assurance and independence among the children we work with, is often the single most vital ingredient in them achieving these rights. Upholding the dignity of children is important to us.

 Secondly, the resources CRY America receives from individuals are not directed to a specific child. They go towards supporting grassroots projects and cover the costs of teachers, education material, training programs and efforts with parents and communities to enable them to ensure their children’s rights. We believe this approach is not only more sustainable in the long-term, but also impacts far more children and families than just those covered directly by balwadis [pre-primary centers] and non-formal education centers in CRY America supported projects. This in turn ensures that the communities we work with become truly empowered and they can then address their issues in the best interests of their children.

 The third obstacle to direct linkages between donors and children are the sheer logistical, administrative and financial implications of doing this. It would require additional systems, personnel and funds to log, track and moderate communications. In addition, when a donor ceases to contribute (as some do each year) we would need to explain this to the kids and deal with their reactions to the termination of the relationship which would occur for no fault of theirs.

If some children in a project are supported may feel special, while other children who don’t have a sponsor may feel that something is wrong with them. We don’t want children to undergo these ups and downs, when all we are trying to do is to restore to them their basic rights.

 These are some of the reasons we do not have a system of direct linkage between donors and children. All the resources we raise are pooled together and disbursed to the projects we support, not to individual children.

Child labor perpetuates poverty. Child laborers come from impoverished families because working in harsh unhealthy conditions leads children to grow into unskilled, debilitated adults who will not even be employed by the very industry that exploited them. Furthermore, child laborers receive a low, negligible income and often no wages at all. Child labor also depresses adult wages and keeps adults unemployed.

All the available data, from the India PROBE report to the demand for private education in rural India to CRY’s own experience confirms that parents value education and will do their best, including incurring considerable financial costs to ensure their children go to school. Often this is a process that takes time. CRY America supports evening classes and bridge education classes for children till the public school is accessible and other barriers like child labor, girl child discrimination, migration, displacement etc have been addressed.  

 Every child deprived of her rights is our responsibility. We committed these rights to children as nations and their violation is unjust. Whether, therefore, we view this from the point of view of legal obligation, enlightened self-interest or simply the desire to build a just society, ensuring child rights is our responsibility as citizens. While it is true that child laborers usually come from impoverished families where at times parents do not have work, it must be understood that if a parent forces her child to work it is not out of choice.

A parent will force her child to work only under extreme conditions and by doing that she is squashing her dreams for a happy childhood for her child which she would have wanted to give her otherwise.

CRY, Child Rights and You, India, (CRY India) is the owner and licensor of the CRY name and trademarks worldwide. CRY America is the sole representative and licensee of the CRY name and trademarks in the USA. CRY America also utilizes the grant management services of CRY India to ensure that the grants released to India projects are optimally utilized and the quality of programs enhanced.

• • CRY America is an independent non profit organization registered in the USA.
  • CRY America has its own Board of trustees.
  • CRY America is a 501c3 approved organization & all US based donations are tax exempt. 

Our partner CRY India analyses government policies to assess their impact on the rights of children. CRY engages with government agencies at all levels from villages to the national level to ensure that existing child-friendly policies are implemented and that new policies are evolved where necessary. This engagement ranges from advising the Indian government on projects for street children to studying the conditions in juvenile homes, to drafting the current Juvenile Justice Act, coordinating govt. relief work in disaster areas, consulting with the Planning Commission and advocating for the Fundamental Right to education.

CRY India also plans to work with various levels of Government to promote a comprehensive Child Rights Act/Law for India and the formation of a strong Child Rights Commission in India.

No

No. But if this is the first time that you are doing any online transaction involving use of a credit card, you need to ensure that the transaction is secure.

We adopt stringent security measures to ensure that critically sensitive information, such as your personal information and your credit card details are protected. These measures include the following:
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We are committed to protecting your personal information with us. For more details, please do read our Privacy Policy.

To update your personal information with CRY America, please write to: support@cryamerica.org.

CRY America is a 501c3 exempt organization – all donations to CRY America are tax- deductible. However, please note that 501c3 tax exemption receipts are only relevant to US residents and can’t be used to claim for tax deductions outside the USA.

We accept donations in all currencies offline. Online, we accept donations only in US dollars.