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TN to prepare database of transgenders

Statesman News Service
CHENNAI, April 21: Tamil Nadu government today decided to collect the details of transgenders and prepare a database with the assistance of NGOs.
This was announced by state social welfare minister Mrs Poongothai, during her reply to the demands for grants to her ministry in the Assembly today. The minister announced an allotment of Rs 50 lakh for constituting the board for welfare of transgenders and said the government was considering the nomination of members to the board.
The board would rehabilitate and achieve equality for transgenders in the community. It would look into the various problems, difficulties and inconveniences faced by them, Mrs Poongothai said.
The minister said 12 shelters had been started for street children, who were being provided food, non-formal education and vocational training under the Comprehensive Street Children Programme. She said 50 children had been admitted in each shelter. The government had also launched a project through the Indian Council for Child Welfare for prevention of child abuse.
“The status of women is measured in terms of Gender Development Index. It is 0.71 in Tamil Nadu which is higher than the national average of 0.59. Similarly, in nutrition level and in the care of the disabled, Tamil Nadu is way ahead of other states,” she said.
About 50,000 girls would benefit under the girl child protection scheme to prevent female infanticide, she said. Under the scheme, Rs 22,200 would be deposited in the name of the girl child, who would get the amount on the twentieth year of deposit, while receiving the interest every month.
About 3000 children had been saved by the cradle baby scheme, under which cradles are placed in government hospitals, social welfare offices and district collectorates to receive abandoned babies, the minister added.

Geetanjali Krishna: Children of a lesser god
PEOPLE LIKE THEM
Geetanjali Krishna / New Delhi April 19, 2008

This could be a huge tourist draw if the government cleaned it up,” I murmured to my friend Mahima as we gazed upon the network of star-shaped pools across Urdu Park under Jama Masjid in Old Delhi. I imagined them filled with water, reflecting the moonlight. However, further into the park, as eyes adjusted to the darkness, we realised the reality of Urdu Park was quite different. In dark corners and lonely nooks, many people squatted on the floor. Most were children, dirty and ragged.

I caught a whiff of something tantalisingly familiar from them. “Glue,” said Kaivalya, one of the Jamghat volunteers, “all children here sniff it.” But they looked too tiny to be into substance abuse, I said incredulously. “They probably aren’t as young as you think — the glue stunts their growth…” he said. Just then, a boy, apparently teenaged, appeared. All the children swarmed around him, shouting excitedly. “Look carefully and you might see his tube of glue — he sells one squirt of it for Rs 2,” said Kaivalya. A little fellow darted away from the group clutching a handkerchief. I now knew enough to realise that it probably contained two rupees worth of glue. Suddenly Urdu Park began to look less beautiful to me.

“It takes most children less than a month on the streets to take to glue,” said Amit, who started Jamghat. He and his friends estimate that almost every single child on the streets of Delhi has been sexually, physically or mentally abused. The children face other problems as well — the money they make begging, pushing carts or as coolies, is more often than not, snatched by older residents of the park, even by the police themselves. “It is sad,” said Amit, “but the fact is that today, few are willing to take on the responsibility of these troubled children.”

In fact, even Jamghat was originally conceived only as a theatre group. “I first met the children of Urdu Park in 2003, when Action Aid asked me to conduct some theatre workshops,” said Amit. Along with fourteen street kids, Amit moved to a campus where they lived, worked and played together. “We performed for Prince Charles when he visited India, and got lots of media coverage,” he reminisced. But soon after, the money dried up. The children by this time did not want to disband, having grown used to having a roof over their heads and the tough love that Amit gave them. Amit also couldn’t abandon them knowing that they would have no option but to return to the streets. “That’s how Jamghat just developed into a home for street children,” said Amit.

Running a residential facility for street kids isn’t easy — the children have faced too many traumas to be trusting. They’ve lived without rules for long enough to baulk when any are implemented. “We have only two rules in Jamghat — no drugs and no abuse,” said Amit, “other than this, they are free.” All in all, over 35 kids have been rehabilitated so far — some have even chosen to go home, while others work or study. Amit abandoned his own dreams of a career in theatre to help these kids earn their upkeep though street plays. “We don’t want people to just give us money,” said Amit, “we’d welcome more sponsorships for our plays though!” While we were talking, the baby of Jamghat, four-year-old Saddam, returned from school, pleased as punch with his new uniform. Seeing us looking at pictures of kids in Jama Masjid, he said, “it’s very far from here…”

He’s probably too young to know how right he is.

‘Hope’ for city street children

Shiv Karan Singh
KOLKATA: April 15: “We all have our dream, but to see it come true in one’s life is what is most amazing,” declared Ms Maureen Forrest, director, Hope Foundation Ireland, as she inaugurated a hospital for underprivileged children at 139B Vinobha Bhave Road, near Taratala.
The three-storied hospital, an extension of the care Hope Foundation, has been providing street children in Kolkata, will provide facility for thirty patients and host an operation theatre, pathology department, X-ray department and ECG  facility.
Ms Forrest stressed that the hospital has not been established “to duplicate any existing services”, but to provide a place to treat children who face rejection in other primary and emergency healthcare centres.
The hospital will host an outpatient facility for the local population, but as director, Hope Kolkata Foundation, Ms Geeta Venkadakrishnan noted: “The hospital is not for adults who can afford government medical facilities.” Such patients will be refered to government hospitals. Dr Alok Maity, medical director of the new hospital, will have a team of eight doctors, both specialists and general medical practitioners, and twenty-one nurses, of which he has already hired nine. “We are prepared to begin functioning from next week,” added Dr Maity after the function.

Street Children Project at Maloya to be functional this year, says Punjab Governor
Punjab Newsline Network   
Friday, 11 April 2008

CHANDIGARH:  The first phase of the innovative project for empowering street children and helping them to cope, being constructed at Maloya, will be functional this year.

This was announced by the Punjab Governor and Administrator, Union Territory, Chandigarh, Gen. (Retd.), S.F. Rodrigues, PVSM VSM during his visit at the developmental projects, here Friday.

Rodrigues asked the executing agencies to adhere to the schedule of completion of different phases and create necessary support services and infrastructural facilities for housing 300 children and training them in different vocations in the first phase by August, 2008 and subsequently making it ready, in all respects, to accommodate 900 street children by March, next year.

Accompanied by  Jean Rodrigues, the Administrator went round the complex under construction and discussed with senior officers of Chandigarh Housing Board, Engineering Department and Social Welfare Department, the details of the facilities to be created in the state-of-the-art project.

He asked the Secretary Finance –cum-Engineering, Sanjay Kumar, to coordinate the endeavour and to ensure that peripheral services, such as sewerage, storm water, water supply and electricity and all necessary infrastructure for commencing the operation of the first phase must be in place for providing accommodation and training facilities, besides making arrangement for furniture, deployment/recruitment of staff and for identification of children to be housed in the Vocational Training Center.

It may be recalled that General Rodrigues laid the foundation of this Rs. 7.40 crore unique project on September 7, 2007, setting a deadline for the completion of the project. It will extend vocational training facilities to street children in electrical, electronics repair/assembling services, beauty culture, cutting, tailoring and embroidery, motor mechanic, carpentry, food processing and dress designing to enable them to lead lives of dignity, respect and confidence.

General Rodrigues also took stock of the progress of construction work at the vocational Training and Production Center, in Sector 46-D. He told the executing agencies that the vocational training and production center, being constructed at a cost of Rs. 2.86 crores, with various facilities aims, to impart professional skills to the needy and empower them to be useful and productive members of society.

Rodrigues emphasized that dedicated NGOs and committed social activists & experts must be associated with these societal ventures, to help us understand the needs of these vulnerable groups and who can spare time and energy to provide counseling services to make these people useful and productive citizens of society.

He said that these projects must have partnerships with caring and concerned people  and also emphasized that priority should be given to children in the first phase to those who have nobody to look after them.

The Administrator also visited village Hallomajra and took stock of developmental works.  He approved the plans for making it a integrated township, with the focus on facilities of education and vocational training, for empowering our citizens. 

Street children attend summer camp of a different kind
Jayadev Mukundan
Posted online: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 at 12:36:49
Updated: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 at 12:36:49

Pune, April 08 As children across the city get ready to attend various adventure camps and craft honing workshops during their summer vacations, 34 street children will be learning the essential art of saving their daily wages. Initiated by Sarv Seva Sangh (SSS), that has been working for the cause of underprivileged children and HIV infected persons, these three-day camps are part of SSS’s tireless efforts over the past decade, aimed at bettering the lot of street kids.

So if 19-year-old Praveen Patil who used to squander the Rs 100 he earned everyday, by selling re-filled drinking water packets at the railway station, on drugs and alcohol is now saving most of that amount to secure his future, he has SSS to thank for the change.

Same goes for the 34 kids who are presently attending the three-day camp that started on April 7, Monday at Mount Patrick Academy. All these children are involved in doing odd menial jobs at the station ranging from sweeping to selling of small items. And even though SSS volunteers are well aware of the fact that it’s neigh impossible for them to revolutionise the lives of these children in a single day, it has not deterred them from the task. “It is a gradual process and we are sure we can instill some good values in them. The main problem in these children is that they lack a goal in life. We are trying to motivate them and develop an urge to live in them,” said Sunita Manj, senior social activist associated with SSS.

She added that all these children stayed on the railway station premises and almost all were addicted to drugs like ganja, tambaku and even heroin. “But we are getting good response from these children as almost everybody, who attended the previous camp came to participate in this camp too,” she added. SSS holds these camps four times a year. In recent years, the organisation had made changes in the nature of its camps to suit the children. Earlier, the duration of the camps were six to seven days. “But we found that these children are not used to such continuous sessions, due to which they would run away from the camp midway. This forced us to reduce the duration of the camps. We find three days is more appealing to the children,” said Manj.

In the camp apart from games, these children are also taught lessons that bring home the importance of saving money and adopting certain values in life. Last year the organisation even took the children to a near by amusement park for a picnic. In addition to these camps, six-to-seven dedicated staffers of SSS visit the railway stations and other dwelling places of these children on a daily basis and monitor their activities.

No child’s play: A bank run by and for street children
Monday, 31 March , 2008, 15:11

New Delhi: The cashier counts the currency notes carefully, makes an entry in the passbook and hands it over to the waiting customer through a tiny window. But this is no ordinary bank — as both the cashier and consumer are actually street children.

The Bal Vikas Bank, or Children’s Development Bank (CDB), is a unique initiative by a Delhi-based NGO Butterflies, whose primary aim is to inculcate a sense of saving money in street children, who otherwise end up wasting whatever little they have on gambling or drugs.

Suman Sachdeva, project development manager of Butterflies, said the programme, which began in 2001 and runs from 11 night shelters spread across the city, does more than just help children save money.

"The Children’s Development Bank is not a stand alone programme. Since it’s run by and for children, it inculcates in them a sense of responsibility. And it also brings them on the path of education since one can’t be expected to maintain ledgers and passbooks without being literate," Sachdeva told IANS.

Trained by volunteers of the HSBC bank, the young officials of CDB, mostly in the age group of 12-14, are as professional as they get. The members are either rag pickers or work in teashops and dhabas.

Since its inception, CDB has grown from 20 members to 1,700 in Delhi alone.

Rakesh Kumar, all of 12 and a runaway from his home in Bihar, is manager of the bank’s Nizamuddin branch.

Sharp at 6.30 in the evening, when the bank opens after the children return from "work", Kumar walks in. Dressed in a chocolate brown pair of trousers, a white printed shirt and hair neatly combed, he enters his cubicle painted bright yellow and pink.

Soon a number of young customers queue up in front of the cashier’s window with their earnings of the day, anything between Rs 20 and Rs 50. Members get a 3.5 per cent interest return on their savings.

"It feels good to be able to handle such a responsibility," Kumar said as he made an entry in the passbook and handed over Rs 50 to a customer, as young as him.

"It’s a matter of pride to be the bank manager. We have regular meetings and choose a different bank manager every six months," he added.

Apart from the bank timings, there are other rules that the children have made.

For instance, it’s unanimously decided that kids selling pornographic material or indulging in stealing, pick-pocketing and substance abuse will not be given membership of the bank.

Like any other bank, CDB, whose overall functioning is seen by the volunteers of the NGO, has two types of accounts — the jama khata or savings account where a minimum of Re 1 can be saved, and the chalta phirta account or the current account.

"One can also take loans from the bank. The request is, however, carefully reviewed by a panel of nine members comprising NGO volunteers and children. These loans are more often than not for business propositions," Sachdeva said.

"So, for instance, if someone wants to start a teashop or a video CD shop, one can take a loan. It specially helps girls to empower themselves, by setting up tailoring or embroidery shops, and protects them from being pushed into prostitution."

The membership of CDB comes to an end when a child turns 18. He or she then has the option of seeking membership in other affiliated banks like ICICI or Andhra Bank.

"As an offshoot of this programme, we are now planning to get some of the children who have turned 18 to get trained by institutes such as the Pusa Institute of Hotel Management so that they can be absorbed by catering agencies later," Sachdeva said.

"Hopefully, we should start the programme by June this year," Sachdeva said.

CDB has its branches in Kolkata (West Bengal), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Muzaffarpur (Bihar) and Srinagar and Leh (Jammu and Kashmir), besides the 11 locations in Delhi.

Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka also have branches of CDB, which are run by partner organisations. For instance in Afghanistan, Aschiana is the key organisation that runs CDB there.

On popular request, there might be a few other countries that could join the list. In South Asia, CDB has over 8,000 members.

No child’s play! Street kids run a bank
Street kids in Delhi have started investing for their future by saving in a unique bank which is run by them with the help of a NGO.
Danish Siddiqui

New Delhi: Street and working children constitute one of the most disadvantaged sections of society as a result of homelessness, lack of family support, and exclusion from basic services such as health and education.

The Children’s Development Bank at Old Delhi is an initiative to teach adolescents on how to get a better grip on their lives. The bank is run by kids in the age group of 7-18. Initially, these street kids were taught how to budget, maintain accounts, cash, ledgers and pass books by HSBC bank. Children here may not be eligible to vote, but they sure know how to run a bank. The model has been so successful that it has been borrowed by several NGOs in countries like Nepal, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
The CDB is a lifeline to these children. It has helped them to improve their lives by encouraging them to save part of their earnings, which will allow them to continue their education, acquire vocational skills, and to even eat nutritious food and stay healthy.

Slum tourism or reality tours, opinion is split
Tours to slums, which are getting popular, are being seen as a way to support the needy; but critics say unethical
Aliyah Shahid

New Delhi: Shekhar Saini points to a small juice shack lined with bananas, apples and oranges. He then directs the eyes of his Australian tourists to the flattened cardboard boxes laying on top of the small stand on a platform in the New Delhi railway station. “That’s where some of the street kids sleep at night,” he says loudly over the drone of a train rumbling into the station. “You have to be clever when you live on the street.”

Saini would know. He ran away from Bihar when he was 12, and lived at the station for several years. He ran away because his smoking and gambling had brought shame to his middle-class family. Now 21, Saini works as a tour guide for Salaam Baalak Trust, a non-profit that provides support to street and working children.
The Rs200 two-hour tour goes through Paharganj and the New Delhi railway station, where Saini says more than 200 children, some as young as five, live. While sharing his story, Saini points out how street children eat, sleep and face issues like prostitution, gang-life and drugs.
In the past few years, “reality tours” such as Salaam Balaak Trust’s have been popping up in major cities across India.

A Mumbai company runs a tour where sightseers are taken to Dharavi, Asia’s biggest slum. Global Exchange, an international human rights organization, arranges reality tours in over 30 countries, including India.
These tours have become popular among travellers, evidenced by listings in popular sightseeing books such as Lonely Planet and Rough Guide. But while these trips are designed to create awareness, some critics say they’re merely voyeuristic, intended for weal-thy tourists to gawk at India’s poverty and maybe even come away with a pretty picture.

“I don’t care if 150% of the money is going to the NGO or to the welfare of those poor people. The first and foremost issue is dignity,” said Javed Abidi, a social activist and honorary director the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People in New Delhi.
“When you’re barging into people’s homes or barging your camera into the faces of little kids, who don’t know what’s going on, you’re just showcasing poverty.”
Not everyone agrees.

Dusk Richardson, a student of anthropology in Melbourne, Australia, came to India to learn about the poor. She found out about the Salaam Baalak Trust tour from a listing in Lonely Planet.
“So far the tour has been great and extremely interesting,” said Richardson, as she watched a group of young street children playing a board game. “I think when an indigenous person is taking you around, it’s not exploitative.”

Krishna Poojari, owner of Reality Tours and Travel, has been organizing tours to Dharavi since January 2006.
During the tour, travellers are taken through residential areas, in addition to visits to small-scale industries—recycling, pottery, soap making, leather tanning and pappadom making—that thrive in the slum.
During a tour in December, tourists even watched the slaughter of goats for Eid. Tours run two-and-a-half hours for Rs300 and four-and-a-half hours cost Rs600. During the longer tour, tourists are driven through Mumbai’s red-light district.

Poojari said the objective of the tour is to break stereotypes. “People are really surprised to see there’s no begging and that there’s a sense of community, people working hard and people being happy,” he said. “We show a positive side of the slums”.

One Mumbai company offers a tour in which sightseers are taken to Dharavi, Asia’s biggest slum
He added that there is a no-camera policy to protect the privacy of residents. However, on a recent tour, tourists were allowed to take pictures if they asked permission first and kept snapping to a minimum.
Reality Tours has also started two-day rural tours, where visitors can see what life in an Indian village is like. They spend the night with a family in nearby Indapur in southern Maharashtra, and participate in works such as milking cows and ploughing fields, says the company’s website. The price: Rs12,000 for a group of five.

Still, some are skeptical. “Obviously, the intention here is to get some easy money,” said Abidi. “Yes you need money to do social work, but there are better ways to get that money. If the work is good, the credibility intact, there are agencies available. But to get money in this fashion—slum tourism—is completely unethical.”

But Saini says nobody knows the culture of streets better than those who grew up on them. The tour winds up at one of Salaam Baalak’s contact points, where 53 former street kids under the age of 14 live. During the summers, up to 80 kids will live there. About half of them have shaved heads to prevent lice. They sing and smile, and most of them are eager to have their pictures taken by the visitors.
It has been an emotional visit for many of the tourists.

One woman from Brisbane, Australia cries for the second time. Saini reminds the tourists the cost is Rs200. Tips are appreciated.

Streetsmart bankers
2 Mar 2008, 0000 hrs IST,Meenakshi Sinha,TNN

Customer care: Ajay Kumar, 13, mans the counter at CDB’s Fatehpuri branch in Delhi as street children queue up (TOI Photo)                               The Fatehpuri night shelter for street children near the heavily congested Old Delhi Railway Station is quite a contrast to the chaos outside. Around 20 children, aged between 12 and 16, are gleefully watching cartoons on a television set placed in the middle of a spartan hall painted bright pink. There’s a wooden table and chair for the caretaker, neatly piled beddings for the children and a wall covered with graffiti. There is also a cubicle, around three by three feet, at the far end. This red-and- yellow enclosure is the Children’s Development Bank (CDB) — run by street children, exclusively for street children. As soon as the bank opens at 6:30 pm (unlike regular banks, CDB operates only in the evening because street children work during the day), its young customers line up to make withdrawals or deposit their day’s earnings. Thirteen-year-old Durgesh waits patiently as the cashier — who is as old as Durgesh — makes an entry in his passbook and hands him a note of Rs 50. Apart from his daily expenses and an occasional movie outing, Durgesh is saving up hard to go home. "The bank is a safe place to deposit my money," he says. There are many like him — runaways from desperately poor rural homes who join the big city’s floating population of ragpickers and street vendors. "Most of them are boys; there aren’t many girls on the streets," says Suman Sachdeva, development manager of Butterflies, the NGO behind the initiative. The bank opens for an hour everyday — a busy time for its manager-cum-cashier, a nominated child volunteer who runs the affairs. The job is rotated every six months, giving youngsters (usually in the 12-14 age group) a chance to learn accounting and be responsible with money. Ajay Kumar, 13, who’s currently in charge of the Fatehpuri branch, came to Delhi from Chamoli district in Uttaranchal over a year ago. Dressed nattily in navy blue trousers, sweater and white shirt, with hair neatly combed back, he looks every inch the typical branch manager. Studying in fifth standard at a school nearby, Ajay has been running the show for four months now. "Daily savings range anything between Rs 150 and Rs 300," he says. Initially, CDB’s little employees were trained by HSBC in the basics of banking. Children were taught how to maintain cash, ledgers and passbooks. "They were also taught how to budget their earnings and the value of saving. Earlier, they spent all their earnings on watching films," says Sachdeva. Launched in 2000, with Rs 2 lakh as seed money from the National Foundation for India, CDB began with a membership of 20. These street children agreed to be part of the project because no mainstream bank would give them entry. This core group also framed the rules and regulations. Any working child, for instance, can approach the bank — except those who are in the habit of stealing, begging, selling pornographic material or substance abuse. Like any bank, CDB too has two kinds of accounts —jama khata (savings account) where a minimum of Re 1 can be saved, and chalta phirta account, which is the current account. Members get a 3.5% interest return on their savings. "All this assures children that their hard-earned money is in safe hands. It’s their own wealth and they can access it anytime. And it comes at absolutely no cost," says Sachdeva. The bank also sanctions advance loans linked to vocational skills. A committee of nine members (comprising NGO volunteers and children) assesses the requests during monthly meetings. "These loans have played a special role by empowering girls, who would otherwise be pushed into prostitution," says Sachdeva. A few girls with skills in embroidery and tailoring have got loans to start businesses of their own. Over the years, this streetside story has travelled way beyond the Capital. In the first year, membership grew from 20 to 800 at the Fatehpuri centre alone. At present, the bank operates from three night shelters and 14 contact areas in Delhi. But its network is spread all over: parks, bus stations, and pavements. In 2004, other NGOs tied up with CDB which branched out to Chennai, Leh and Kolkata. In Muzaffarpur, Bihar, sex workers’ children joined the bank. In the Andamans, CDB was already operational when the tsunami hit the islands. It has even branched out to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Others like Kyrgyzstan and Ethiopia may join this year. The bank, which has international training meets and online support, now boasts a membership of 8,000 across India. The Capital alone has 1,700 members, with savings amounting to Rs 1.5 lakh. Of course, membership ceases when the child turns 18. The youngster has the option to either close the account or shift to a mainstream bank (Andhra Bank and ICICI are affiliates). Until then, they’re happy banking on CDB — their security blanket in an insecure world. meenakshi.sinha@timesgroup.com

Mobile school hit among street kids
15 Feb 2008, 0027 hrs IST,TNN

PUNE: Eight-year-old Karan Kumar collects polythene bags and recycled waste around the city and as the clock hits 2 pm, he stops doing his work. Soon, a van wheels in bringing a smile on his face. A host of other kids join him as they run towards it.

The ‘Manoranjan Shala’ van, a mobile school initiative, is a sliver of hope for kids like Karan from their daily grind at slums, pavements, construction sites and even traffic signals where they sell newspapers, flowers and other things.

An initiative of Sarva Seva Sangh (SSS), a non- governmental organisation (NGO), the Manoranjan Shala van steers away from the monotonous educational methods and instead teaches street children through fun-filled methods.

As many as 150 kids benefit from this school-on-wheels programme, which was started a year ago, Father Richard Quadros, assistant director of SSS, told TOI.

“Initially, it was very difficult for us to formulate this programme because the parents of the kids didn’t understand what was happening inside the van,” Fr Quadros said. Since these kids are working and bring home the much-needed money, they were scared that school and education would snatch away a breadwinner of the family.

“We had to think of something that would help the children without putting their families into jeopardy. The kids are not interested in mainstream education, so we decided to provide education in a different way.”

The SSS came up with the idea of organizing a van service with teachers who would go to eight spots including pavements, slums, traffic signals and construction sites and teach the children who work there.

“We have decided to devise modules like telling them stories that have messages on the importance of health and hygiene,” Pushpalata Salunke, a teacher who travels with the van every day, said.

The van, which mainly visits Wagholi, Ahmednagar road and Hadapsar has colourful story books and has an audio-visual set-up in it. The van is a storehouse of excitement for these kids which plays the latest Bollywood numbers. Telling stories, colourful pictures, carrom, clay work and puzzles are also used to teach them in a fun-filled manner. The session lasts for about an hour each day.

“Anybody can teach sitting on a chair and a table, but these children don’t want to learn that way. They are very talented but they need to be treated in a different way,” Salunke informed.

According to Fr Quadros, there were teething problems. The community did not accept the project. We had a job in hand and we convinced the parents and society about our motive behind running ‘Manoranjan Shala’. “After a year, we have heaved a sigh of relief because now the people are convinced and have taken in well.”

And that’s not all. Salunke says, “Many of the street kids, who are vulnerable to drug abuse, have decided to kick their habit after attending the school sessions.”