The Ashadeep team work with children living on the streets in and around the Railway Stations in Mumbai.
Railway Children, mostly boys, live on the railway stations by night, sleeping on the platforms, sometimes mere feet from where the trains race by, or on the footpaths or under bridges.
An estimated 30 unaccompanied children arrive at the city's 125 train stations every day. They're attracted by the hope that there are jobs in the country's most prosperous city, and also by the image of glamour that gives Mumbai the reputation of being the Los Angeles of India. At many of the stations a revolving community of kids come and go, and some are more established as Mumbai is the terminus for long-distance trains and there is steady work.. Many of these new arrivals leave the station to live on the streets, end up in red-light districts, or are found and helped by a nongovernmental aid organization (NGO). Some are arrested and end up in juvenile detention.
Like runaways worldwide, some of these children have fled abusive parents, starvation, or worse. Still others become separated from their families on a train and simply ride until the last stop.
Barefoot and dressed in shorts and ragged T-shirts, the boys have become a necessary, though not always welcome, part of station life. Most work as porters, loading and unloading burlap- covered bales of linens from the trains and carrying luggage for passengers.Those too small for such jobs clean trains, sell refilled water bottles, and beg. During slow times, they hang out in video parlors to escape into a Bollywood movie. Drug use, particularly glue sniffing, is a serious problem for many of these boys with many searching for an escape from the brutality of their lives. Many inhale ink thinner from rags, the cheapest "high" available. At night, they sleep in small groups on sheets of cardboard laid out on the platforms.
NGOs enlist the help of vendors, bathroom cleaners, ticket checkers, and others who work in the station to keep a 24-hours look out to recognize the new faces. Once a new face is recognised, they contact the local NGO's and social workers to engage the child. The social workers spend much of their working day in the train stations, searching for new children. encouraging them to come to the center for food, baths, clean clothes, and the chance to be part of the Ashadeep community. When a child wants to leave the railway life, social workers will either contact the family if the boy has one, try reconciliation. or helps them get into a group residential home, boarding school, or rehab center.
Boys are more likely than girls to actually run away from home and leave their villages. The girls who do arrive are the first to disappear. The sex trade swallows up the girls immediately. Obviously, some kind of more immediate intervention needs to occur, because once any child is plucked away from the station they are almost always lost.
The Day Care Centre provides relief from life on the streets and an opportunity for education, nutrition and medical attention for diseases such as malaria, leprosy and tuberculosis. Monthly medical check-ups are also provided in partnership with local doctors and hospitals.
The Night Shelter assures a secure place for5-12 year old boys to rest, have a bath and share a meal with other boys.
The Children’s Home allows youths to live in a family environment. Here they receive the love, care and discipline of a normal, loving home.
Global Angels Ambassador Natasha Bedingfield visited the project and gave a grant to help resource the project.
