Restoring Lost Childhoods
Little Feet
India is home to the largest number of street children. According to UNICEF, there are 11 million street children in India. Street children are those who live on the streets, due to a host of reasons that result in their being forced to leave their homes and eke a living on streets by begging, vending or running errands. Thus the street ironically is their home and a source of livelihood. Often, these children are abandoned, orphaned, or have run away from homes due to parental neglect and abuse. Poverty, disasters (both natural and human), physical and sexual abuse, and more recently, the growing incidence of HIV/AIDS precipitate a child’s perilous journey into street childhood.
Yet, despite the grim statistics, the human face of the problem becomes apparent only when you encounter street children. My fi rst encounter with street children was about three years back, when I had the opportunity to work with Vidiyal, the Madurai-based children’s charity that rehabilitates street and working children.
I still remember walking through the urban slum where the children lived. The squalor, overcrowding, and deprivation fi lled me with deep guilt at the sub-human conditions in which some people live. It was also common for these people to eat leftover food which hotels doled out to them. Quite often, the food would be unfi t for human consumption.
This is why I was amazed at the depth and sincerity of organisations like Vidiyal and Nanban that rehabilitate street and working children. I recall interacting with the children at Vidiyal and even inviting some of them over to my place. Their behaviour, courtesy and charm still linger in my memory. They were well groomed and their table manners envious. However, the next day, Jim Jesudoss, Director of Vidiyal, called me and thanked me for treating the “Dalit children” with love and dignity—a fact that mattered so much to them. I didn’t think I was doing anything special. To me they were all beautiful children, who deserve the same rights, love and respect as any other child, irrespective of caste or other manmade barriers.
Our cover story this month captures some of the interventions of Vidiyal and Nanban to improve the lives of street and working children. As Elizabeth Lawrence wrote, “there is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colours are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever.” We owe it to our children to help them discover that, because the future of the country lies in their hands.
