Page 122 - SocialHarmony

126 Social Harmony

helped in generating income. Such small experiments can enable
people to start a movement.

Let Us Participate
Iron is a very essential nutrient for a pregnant woman and

her unborn child. We can provide iron to them through green
vegetables grown in this manner. Cooperative institutes and
nationalized banks have separate budgets for social
responsibility, which should be used for making children
healthy. The State Government has built small gardens in every
village. We should at least put up some playing instruments for
children in one corner of such gardens. These small things are
essential for the development of the bodies and minds of
children. If we care about the future of Gujarat, our children
should be healthy and fit.

Gujarat has taken the initiative to establish the world’s first
Children University. Recently, I had invited educationists from
all over the country to take their opinion about this concept
and their suggestions for how to proceed with it. Around sixteen
renowned educationists unanimously appreciated the concept
and felt that this was a wonderful way to serve humankind.
They requested me not to make the Children’s University only
for Gujarat, but a global one. In the age of joint families, children
would absorb thoughts and ideas from their grandparents and
the family would act as a university. Each family had its own
social values and the entire family worked together for the
child’s progress. There were no contradictions between social
values and family values. In this age of nuclear families with
only one child and both parents working, questions arise about
the child’s development. There is massive confusion in society
about where a child wants to go and in whose care he should
be kept. I feel that visionaries should be worried about the
children of Gujarat in the coming days. The idea of Children’s
University has come from this non-stop striving. Today, if you
take a child to any toyshop and ask him to choose a toy, chances
are that more than 80 per cent children would chose a toy gun.
What kind of children are we raising? What should be the child’s