Chandni Khan born in is an Indian activist and editor working for the welfare of

street children Street children are poor or homeless children who live on the streets of a city, town, or village. Homeless youth are often called street kids or street child; the definition of street children is contested, but many practitioners and policyma ...

in different parts of India. She founded the NGO, Voice of Slum along with Dev Pratap Singh. She was the editor of the newspaper ''Balaknama'', literally meaning "voice of children", published in

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the NCT Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati B ...

. She is also called Chandni Di, the word ''di'' meaning "older sister" in some Indian languages.

Life and education

Chandni was a homeless child herself. At the age of five, she started performing street shows with her father in

Noida Noida, short for New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, is a planned city located in Gautam Buddha Nagar district of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Noida is a satellite city of Delhi and is a part of the National Capital Region (India) ...

. He died in 2008, after which she and her mother survived by ragpicking and selling flowers at traffic intersections. She was twelve when she met some volunteers of CHETNA, an NGO that facilitates education and healthcare for underprivileged children. With the NGO's assistance, Chandni enrolled into an open school programme in 2010.

Career

In 2010, Chandni started working as a trainee reporter at ''Balaknama'', a newspaper brought out by and for street children in Delhi. CHETNA started the newspaper and continues to support it. Four years later, she was promoted to the position of its editor. Simultaneously, she started working for CHETNA's sister NGO ''Badhte Kadam''. As the National Secretary of ''Badhte Kadam'', she has worked for the welfare and rights of homeless children in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders wi ...

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital city, capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar, and Rewa, India, Rewa being the othe ...

, and

Haryana Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land ...

. She co-founded Voice of Slum in 2015 with her friend Dev Pratap Singh, who had also grown up in slums. The organization, among other things, runs a school in

for children living in low-income neighborhoods. She has delivered talks at different

TEDx TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

events, Josh Talks and the

United Nations Development Programme The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...

(UNDP).
She has worked with the

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (commonly abbreviated as the CRC or UNCRC) is an international human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. The Con ...

(UNCRC), the

National Commission for Protection of Child Rights The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) is an Indian statutory body established by an Act of Parliament, the Commission for Protection of Child Rights (CPCR) Act, 2005. The Commission works under the aegis of Ministry of ...

(NCPCR), Child Relief and You (CRY),

Save the Children The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organization established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic ...

, and

Plan A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with details of timing and resources, used to achieve an objective to do something. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions through which one expects to achieve a goal ...

India.

References

External links

Voice of Slum
Childhood Enhancement through Training and Action (CHETNA) i
Member Directory -- Consortium for Street Children
{{DEFAULTSORT:Khan, Chandni Living people Indian women activists Indian children's rights activists Street children 1997 births

Life and education

Career

See also

References

External links