Corn selling experiment...

One of the biggest challenge that these children face is that from police...as soon as the police sees these children they don't hesitate throwing their stick at them or chasing these children out of the market area...the police's reason is simple - the children move around the plaza and trouble people by begging...and then if anybody loses anything then their first suspicion is these children. The attitude of the people as well as the police towards these children is quite pathetic. They are always blaming these children without realizing that at some level each of us is to blame for the way these children have become.

Anyway, i have been talking to a few constables at the plaza and have been requesting them to change their attitude towards these children....some of the constables have been very understanding and have said that they would give their support while some give me a lecture as to how i am wasting my time etc but since i only request them to be a little polite, they generally agree. Their only request is that the children should not trouble the general public in the plaza. Now this is quite a valid request so i tried to talk to the children about it...but then if not begging what do they do? How do they put food on their table? A passer by who was listening to my conversation with the children came to me and gave me an idea of making these children sell roasted corn on the street. The idea was welcomed by the children as well as their older siblings...and we implemented it the very next day. We formed 4 teams of 3 each. Each team has one older boy and two younger ones. The idea was that they would sit by the road side (a very common practice in India) and sell corn as a team and then divide the money. They promised that they would not fight with their partners and not beg if this idea works.

Goli (one of the older street boy) and i went to the local sabzi mandi and got one big sack of corn, some coal, 4 wire meshes, salt, lime and 4 bags. Each team was given some coal, lime, salt, corn and a bag to put their stuff in. The biggest challenge again is the police...i gave each of these boys a letter which said that this stuff has been give to these children by me and the police can call me at my cell phone number to verify. This was given as a pre-emptive measure incase the police suspects them of stealing. If the boys continue to show enthusiasm, i plan to talk to the police superintendent to seek his support.

There were a lot of challenges that these boys had to face the first day like where to sit, the police chased them away from a few places but they did manage to sell quite a few corns the first day. Yesterday was their second day and last night i got a call that they have sold all the corn and need more. It was decided that i will buy corn for them twice and then they will start saving to buy the corn themselves.

Let us see how this experiment goes...i am keeping my fingers crossed.

Vocation Training...

There have been quite a few changes in the street school that we are running in the rose
garden. As mentioned earlier, a lot of grown up (above 17yrs) boys had also started
coming to the school...most of these boys polish shoes and encouraged their younger siblings to beg. The good thing was that all of these boys showed eagerness in learning to read and write and always showed up in time for the class. Apart from studying, we did a lot of talking during the class…this was mainly done to understand their issues, to win their trust and to encourage them to move away from begging.

We talked about various other skills that they could learn. They also understood that begging or polishing shoes would not sustain them for long… and showed interest in learning some vocation. With the help of Pramod (from yuvasatta), I approached the director of "Jan Shikshan Sansthan" – a vocational institute aided by the government. The response from the director was phenomenal…he agreed to send a senior manager from his institute to give a pep-up talk to the boys and to give a brief description of all the courses that are available and also what he thought these boys could learn. Finally, it was agreed that the boys would learn stitching and tailoring for two hours a day and continue with their regular work of polishing shoes in the evenings. Half of the cost of the course would be taken up by the institute and the other half would be taken up by us. The total cost to us is about Rs.1500 ($33) per month. Please email me if you would like to support this effort.

8 boys have started going to this institute regularly and so far have shown a lot of enthusiasm...they also didn't want to discontinue their studies so we have decided that i will go and teach them 2 to 3 times a week after their tailoring class. So far this has worked for a week and at the end of the class the boys feel a sense of accomplishment. It is a pleasure to see their beaming faces. i hope that the enthusiasm and the pleasure continues...

PS: some of these boys are also selling corns in the evening…see the next posting for details.

***the school at the rose garden continues since the younger children still come there.

Vocation Training...

There have been quite a few changes in the street school that we are running in the rose garden. As mentioned earlier, a lot of grown up (above 17yrs) boys had also started coming to the school...most of these boys polish shoes and encouraged their younger siblings to beg. The good thing was that all of these boys showed eagerness in learning to read and write and always showed up in time for the class. Apart from studying, we did a lot of talking during the class…this was mainly done to understand their issues, to win their trust and to encourage them to move away from begging.

We talked about various other skills that they could learn. They also understood that begging or polishing shoes would not sustain them for long… and showed interest in learning some vocation. With the help of Pramod (from yuvasatta), I approached the director of "Jan Shikshan Sansthan" – a vocational institute aided by the government. The response from the director was phenomenal…he agreed to send a senior manager from his institute to give a pep-up talk to the boys and to give a brief description of all the courses that are available and also what he thought these boys could learn. Finally, it was agreed that the boys would learn stitching and tailoring for two hours a day and continue with their regular work of polishing shoes in the evenings. Half of the cost of the course would be taken up by the institute and the other half would be taken up by us. The total cost to us is about Rs.1500 ($33) per month. Please email me if you would like to support this effort.

8 boys have started going to this institute regularly and so far have shown a lot of enthusiasm...they also didn't want to discontinue their studies so we have decided that i will go and teach them 2 to 3 times a week after their tailoring class. So far this has worked for a week and at the end of the class the boys feel a sense of accomplishment. It is a pleasure to see their beaming faces. i hope that the enthusiasm and the pleasure continues...

PS: some of these boys are also selling corns in the evening…see the next posting for details.
***the school at the rose garden continues since the younger children still come there.