Rights and Wellbeing through Adolescents’ Eyes – A New Path to Policy: Recommendations from the State Consultation of Adolescents in Karnataka
Posted on February 19, 2026
Rights and Wellbeing through Adolescents’ Eyes — A New Path to Policy, presents collective recommendations from adolescents across Karnataka, developed through extensive pre-consultations through October and November 2025 and a two-day State Consultation on November 19 & 20, 2025 in Bangalore, Karnataka. Over 200 adolescents from nine organisations spanning six districts, contributed through community-based pre-consultations, with 28 peer-nominated representatives from 8 organisations presenting these recommendations at the state level. Adolescents across diverse contexts have voiced clear priorities and solutions to advance their rights, well-being, and inclusion.
Focussing on adolescents with disabilities, they call for equal opportunities for adolescents with disabilities in education, health, and employment, stressing accessible schools, inclusive curricula, safeguards against abuse, and supportive communities that instil confidence rather than pity. Further they call for focus and actioning of government programmes and schemes as well as committed action of all iters of governments – from local to state – to facilitate and support adolescents with disabilities to access all their entitlements.
On education, skilling, and employability, they highlight poor schooling quality, lack of practical skills and employability-based capacity building as barriers to being safe, protected and productive in the world of work, thus recommending age appropriate and activity-based learning, career guidance, safe environments, and stronger child protection enforcement, alongside free education up to 18 years and early vocational training.
Reproductive rights and health are seen as critical to dignity and equality, with adolescents urging awareness of laws, helpline support, continued education, and peer discussions, while parents, schools, CSOs, and governments must prevent child marriage, support girls’ education, improve menstrual health, and provide counselling and legal aid.
Adolescents in Child Care Institutions raise concerns about neglect and inadequate preparation for independent living, calling for nutritious food, education, employability-based skilling, counselling, recreation, integration into mainstream activities, stronger monitoring, and rehabilitation support.
Digital wellbeing is recognised as both an opportunity and a risk, with adolescents recommending responsible use of mobile phones, peer awareness campaigns, and collective action against unsafe practices, while schools, parents, CSOs, and governments must promote digital literacy, healthy habits, safe infrastructure, and regulation of harmful content. Together, these voices underscore the need for systemic reforms and collaborative action across education, health, digital safety, and child protection, with empowerment and inclusion as guiding principles to ensure adolescents shape their futures with dignity, equality, and opportunity.
The design and process strongly reflected the conviction that the adolescents and their collectives were central in this consultation. This desig around the five themes reflect adolescents’ capacity to articulate their needs and propose solutions across diverse areas of rights and wellbeing.
The recommendations calls for collaborative action from all the key players, including children’s collectives, parents and communities, schools, CSOs and systemic action and reforms from local to state level governments; thus ensuring that adolescents are empowered, included, and supported in shaping their futures.
This process was jointly facilitated by Association for Promoting Social Action (APSA), BOSCO, The Concerned for Working Children, India Literacy Project (ILP) and KHPT
To read the recommendations, click here: Recommendations-Rights and Wellbeing through Adolescents Eyes_November 2025
