Education for Street Children
For hundreds of thousands of children, the street is where dreams begin and end, often turning into night mares. It is not just scandal, but a notoriously shame full scandal. 30 million children live on the streets in this world in extreme deprivation and distress. And this number may double over next generation.
The causes are well known. It is nothing but poverty and illiteracy, which drive boys and girls from the comfort of a home to the horrifying perils of roofless existence, where hunger, abuse, emotional torture, physical mutilation and even death are all too familiar.
Called by the most derogatory of names the street children live dangerously. They have no parents, and even if they do have them they have not seen them in a long time. They have no real home, they have no family ties or, at best, very tenuous ones. They have no formal schooling, and all that they can count is the number of sorrows and hard knocks that the unfeeling world gives them.
There are 11 million street children in Indian cities, towns and villages, undernourished and unhappy. Born into very poor families, most of them lead wretched life that is as harsh and horrible as that in Dickens days. Their families are often incomplete. They may not even have a single parent, and even when a mother or father is living, the son or daughter is cast away to be ignored and forgotten. A survey sometime ago found that a mere 30% of the street children worked and the rest begged.
The study merely underlined what we already know. Though a child is considered a nation’s asset, thousands of its ilk lead a nightmarish life, and more often than not, many grow up into criminals. A classic example of innocence turning into evil. Attempts are of course, made to stop this, and UNESCO is one trying to open paths of hope to millions of these unfortunate souls. “All children are UNESCO’S concern, “says Dieter Beseecher, Director for the organization’s Global Action Programme on Education for All, in a recent interview at Paris. “
We stand for the global goal of providing basic education to everyone, in fact not only to children, but even to adults. It is the right of every citizen in India and elsewhere to have a basic lever of education.
“Yet, there are significant groups in many countries excluded from this right to education, excluded also very often from the Government’s mainstream of policies and efforts to extend education. Street children are amongst those groups”. Avers Beseecher.
Undoubtedly, education is a great leveler. Lack of it could always worsen one’s plight, a vulnerable street child’s more so that.
Our consultations with experts and our own expertise led us to firmly believe that the only way out for these youngsters was education and training of the right kind.
We genuinely and seriously feel that education is the key in such situations and this has nothing to do with the fact that we are an educational organization. Of course, a child cannot be educated if it is hungry or threatened. So, all these things have to go hand in hand.
We have brought these children to a central place where in they will be provided with boarding and residence. These children are being given non formal education to attain minimum level of learning.
Apart from non formal education, they are given training in different vocations like carpentry, motor winding and welding for boys and tailoring, Embroidery and soft doll making for girls so that they can earn their livelihood and be self supporting.
We consider that the project will be a complete success if you provide a child minimum level of learning to acquire enough professional vocational skills to become self-sufficient and setup a home.
|
