VIDEO: Meena, India's Dora the Explorer, Helps UNICEF Promote 'Child Rights'

UNICEF launched its annual Child Rights Week this week in Bangladesh. The program is a part of an ongoing grass-roots initiative to educate children and their families about urgent social and public health concerns that range from neonatal health, nutrition, and early childhood education to the practices of dowry and child marriages.

In a country where the literacy rate is still a struggling 53 percent, and the average age that a child drops out of school is 8 years old, mass media as an instructive tool is vitally important. The cartoon heroine Meena, an Indian girl around the age of 10 who lives in a rural village with her family, is the stand-in for a multitude of girls and boys across the subcontinent facing the same issues highlighted by UNICEF — issues which Meena routinely dramatizes on her show.

"Meena is now a daughter not only of Bangladesh but the whole of South Asia," said the UNICEF representative to Bangladesh, Pascal Villeneuve, in a statement on July 27. "She talks about issues affecting girl children in particular, such as education, early marriage, and unequal distribution of household chores."

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CAMPAIGNS: Training held to launch UNICEF’s Meena project

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: UNICEF's unique animated communication initiative 'Meena' to protect the girl child in Kerala began with the training of resource persons here on Sunday. It will be followed by a state-level children's parliament or Balapanchayat to identify atrocities against children, violation of their rights and to evolve a protective mechanism.

As many as 33 resource persons from across the state participated in the training session. "The training focused on the communication aspect, listening skills, counseling with booklets on Meena and on the mode of introducing it among kids at the district-level," said A J Ranjit, state consultant for Balasabha.

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ARTICLES: UNICEF gets 'Meena' to protect girl child (INDIA)

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With an alarming increase in child abuse cases in the state, mostly girls for domestic and commercial sexual exploitation, the UNICEF is set to launch 'Meena' a unique animated communication initiative for girl child protection in Kerala, in coordination with the state government.

"UNICEF has found this initiative exceedingly successful in other states and now plans to take it forward in Kerala. We have written to the state government about the strategy to protect the children through awareness creation and on strengthening the rescue efforts," UNICEF programme officer on child protection told TNN here on Friday. "Over the next two months, this unique initiative will be implemented in Kerala, she said. This communication campaign focusing on key issues relating to the protection of the girl child through animated stories from an image of an empowered girl child Meena.

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NEWS: UNICEF releases 2 'Meena' episodes (BANGLADESH)

Dhaka, June 21 (bdnews24.com) — UNICEF has released two new episodes of Meena cartoons in a bid to strengthen the power of the iconic animated character in influencing children's mind.

The new episodes, released at the Shilpakala Academy on Tuesday, are 'Jadur Pathor' (The Magic Stone), which features hand-washing practices and 'Rupkathar Deshe Meena' (Meena in Fantasy Land), which is about new-born care.

Unveiling the episodes, UNICEF representative in Bangladesh Carel de Rooy said, "Research shows that as a brand, the character Meena is recognised by 97 percent urban children and adolescents and 81 percent of children and adolescents in rural areas of Bangladesh."

Acting chief of the communication and information department of UNICEF, Arifa S Sharmin, told bdnews24.com that Meena, a popular animated character of Bangladesh, is used as a tool of campaign on children's education, health, safety and rights.

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