About

KALLOLA signifies the happy sound of a bird - song at dawn. In a perfect world, the synonym for the happy, joyful laughter of children. You may ask that if Human Rights belong to everyone, why do we need separate rights for children? Children need care and protection to ensure that their rights are upheld. Kallola was conceptualized keeping in mind that children are neither aware of their rights nor do they know how to safeguard them. Hence it becomes the inherent duty of us adults to ensure that their rights are upheld.

In a partnership by UNICEF & Aaina since 2014, Kallola has been conducted as an annual short-film platform on various Child Rights issues. Its aim is to create an environment that promotes the rights and empowerment of children in the state of Odisha through thought-provoking short films.

Objectives of Kallola

• Generating mass awareness on issues related to the rights of children through this platform
• Building capacity of children on creative expression and hearing their views
• Creating awareness on the issues among the filmmaking and creative community that can influence their own perspective and work.

Kallola- The festival

For the last six years, Kallola has created its own space not only as a contest but as an Institution promoting the rights of children through more than 300 short films so far.

Kallola festival comprises of 2 parts

• Kallola with Children - celebrating the creativity of Children.
• Kallola for Filmmakers

Kallola with Children - celebrating the creativity of Children.

Kallola is not just for the children but also with them. This part of Kallola is to ensure participation from children.
Their activities range from nuances of the filmmaking process like developing scripts to technical workshops for shooting to post-production, One of the highlights is the festival week where Children actively participate, interact with resource persons, celebrities, ambassadors etc.
Post festival week activities include discussing issues on a platform related to Children’s Rights.

Kallola for Filmmakers

Every year since its inception, Kallola was rolled out a contest with a different theme on ‘Rights of children' to promote the rights of children through the powerful medium of films. The short films received act as tools to raise awareness and advocacy that help create an environment promoting the rights of children in the state. The focus of all the films was not only to highlight the issue but leave the viewers often with positive action/solution. The messages are emphatic and compel the viewers to rethink these burning issues. Short, yet powerful messages that trigger actions, have been presented year on year, through these short films.
Past themes have varied from child labour, child marriage, sexual abuse, or core issues like Water & Nutrition rights of children, Covid and Children.