Jamghat- A group of street children is a Registered NGO since 2003. We are working with the runaway- home and homeless children in and around Jamamasjid and Hanuman Mandir area. We have fifteen children in indoor centre to whom we provide medical care, counseling, food and lodging specialties with education and vocational training. In outdoor centre there are about 25-50 girls and boys to whom we provide medical care, counseling and food as a day care centre with education and vocational training. Though we have much more in our indoor and outdoor centers, our heart was always with the children out there in the streets, without any guidance or nobody to share their life situation. With much thinking and planning we begun a programme for them called the Outreach Programme, with two staff (Sunil and Deepankar) and a Volunteer (Priyashanker) from CYDA Pune. The following is a study, research and experience of them.
We are there from 10.30am. To 5.30 pm. during which we roam around Jamamasjid and try to gather children at one place for different activities to attract children . Our activities are as follows;
1. ANTAKSHARI (Cross singing completion)
2. CRICKET, FOOTBALL, KABADDI
3. DRAWING COMPITION
4. STORY TELLING
5. COUNCELLING
6. THEATRE TRAINING WHICH EXPOSES SOCIAL ISSUES, ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES AND HUMAN VALUES
The Fantasy world
As we started our work we found many surprising things. The situation around Jamamasjid is very pathetic. The different age groups live over there on the streets or in open space are addicted towards ganja, charas, smoke, and tobacco etc.we found a common thing among all the kids, women, and men that is a type of chemical which is known as solutionwhich is used to repair cycle tube puncture and the whitener pen for correction respectively.
They put these chemicals in a small piece of cloth and suck it. It is very injuries to health. There are many people, who have been taking these drugs for years. These drugs are easily available in the market around this place. By sharing, we came to know that they inhale these drugs to kill the pain of their body, to get relaxed and most importantly they find themselves in a fantasy world after the drug.
The sources of income
People over there, earn by selling (plastics, iron, tin etc), begging, gambling etc.some are rickshaw puller and some have small business on the streets. They have families but not responsibility. They have hope but not dream. They waste all their money in addiction. Parents take drugs and they share with their children too. They spread the chemicals from the tube on a piece of cloth which would cost Rs.2 to Rs.5.
These drugs are openly marketed and there are people who don’t take it but sell it. We found very few children with some dreams to do something in their life. They want to leave the drugs and be good citizens.
Activities:
After seeing such situation around jamamasjid, we started to do different types of activities like games, storytelling, theatre etc. we try to involve them as much as we could so that they would forget their addiction of drugs for few hours. Actually we prefer to communicate to the kids because we could mould their minds easily than the elders. We motivate them by telling good stories with good examples. While doing this we found out some of them are very good at acting, dancing, mimicry, drawing and Shayari telling. But they don’t have platform. All their talents are vanishing behind the curtain of addiction. We try to collect good kids from streets and send them to Jamghat outdoor centre for their education.
The young girls, boys and women are very much Vulnerable. At the age of 13 to 14 they get married. There relation breaks due to lack of education and maturity. They also marry with two three men/lady. Men persecute the women and that is the end of their married life and then the drug life begins followed by prostitution. There are many found with bad health we really help as much as we could. We give them first aid and try to send them to hospital.
Obstacle:
There is no proper place where we can sit with the children and do some activities properly. Every day we change our places. Sometimes under the tree and sometimes under the sun we work. It is very difficult to work during the midday because of the hot temperature. There are parks but not allowed during day time. They start to fight on small issues. Every day we see fights among them. Some local people create problem by trying to break the chain what we make.
Conclusion:
Sharing the life style of the people around this place, during these past few weeks, certainly enriched us so much that we have an experience that would last forever.inspite of a bad surrounding they have humanity. They want to change their self. They have hope from us. They wait every day for us so that they can play with us. They have too much pain within them and want to share with us. They respect us. The rich experience we have we would like many people to have. So we loaded some video clippings and images in our website. Please visit our website www.jamghat.in
