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Reaching out to Kolkata's deprived children.
On the streets of Kolkata there are 50,000 children who have run away from home. They have run away from destitute or cruel homes and survive on the street in uncertainty, poverty and fear of abuse. An NGO has taken the responsibility of bringing these children to school. The Child In Need Institute (CINI) started the CINI-Asha project in 1989 and has now placed nearly 2,600 children in school. It focuses on basic education in the belief that education is a critical requisite for socio-economic change. CINI had already been working for health care for children and expectant mothers in the 24 Parganas district, West Bengal. The project has an unusual drop-in centre at Kolkata railway station, where it provides counselling, recreation, bathing facilities, health care a! nd nutrition to deprived children. Basic literacy inputs are also provided. The CINI-Asha centres are meant to serve as safe, homely environments for children, while they make the transition to school. But it can take up to two years to win a street child's trust and bring the child round to attending the literacy classes that would prepare the child to seek admission in a school, at a level roughly commensurate with his age. The Another project in Kolkata involves identifying out-of-school children in the poor areas of the city -- slums, squatter colonies, etc -- and bringing them into the mainstream. This community-based work reaches out to the ward councillors and other community leaders. Parents, usually mothers, are persuaded to send children to CINI-Asha's centres and children are prepared for schooling. The Centre continues to monitor them through school, and helps them find jobs. The teachers are recru! ited from the local area and follow a syllabus designed with the help of local schools and educators. The objective is to prepare the kids in a one-year course for a class appropriate to their age. The CINI-Asha also runs a halfway home for street children who express the need to give up street life. Here children are counselled to overcome behavioural problems and gradually become accustomed to a more disciplined way of life. The The organisation works for children in red light areas too. An evening drop-in centre provides education, counselling and recreational support to schoolgoing children. CINI-Asha is also the contact NGO for the Childline service 1098, which attends to children in distress in Calcutta. It reaches about 5,000 children every day. The CINI-Asha recently surveyed Ward 66 in the city and identified 2,100 children who are out of school; nearly half of whom have never been t! o school at all. It is now planning to work with them. Contact: CINI-ASHA
63, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road
Calcutta 700016
West Bengal, India
Tel: 91-33-245 2705/245 6262
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