How Jamghat, an NGO, is helping street children

Jamghat, an organisation in Delhi, is steering street children towards a better life

The year was 2003. Prince Charles was to visit India and the NGO Action Aid planned to stage a street play on homelessness for him. It roped in Amit Sinha, a theatre professional, and 14 street children from diverse backgrounds for the project.

The play was a success and the ragtag band toured the country to perform it. The prince came and went. The funds dried up. But Sinha and the children were transformed by the comfort, companionship and confidence they’d found through one another and didn’t want to let it go.

“Instead of going our separate ways, we decided to start an organisation that would enable an understanding and respect for street children within society and find ways to bring them back into the mainstream,” says Sinha. And so Jamghat was born.

It has since impacted hundreds of young lives. Take Usma, for example. One of four siblings who lived with her mentally disturbed mother on the streets of Jama Masjid, she came to Anchal, Jamghat’s residential centre for girls, some years ago. Today, she is a teacher at Jamghat, excited to give others the same opportunities that enabled her to change her life. Her younger brothers are at Aman, Jamghat’s boys’ hostel. Their mother continues to live on the street. “I’m hopeful that once the children finish school and start earning, they’ll be able to care for their mother and bring her back from the brink,” says Sinha.

As of now, the NGO is looking after 11 girls and 16 boys in its residential centres. It’s a mere drop in the ocean, but Sinha is unfazed. “By keeping the numbers small, we’re able to stay fully involved in the children’s lives until the time they start earning,” says he. “Our impact might be small, but we ensure it is deep-rooted.”

Education is one of Jamghat’s primary thrusts, even at its daycare centre in Old Delhi. Fifty-odd children between 4 and 18 years of age come here every morning to bathe, have breakfast and for the tiffin packed by the staff. “Most of them go to school and we ensure that they also get some back-up classes,” says Satyamev Alok, one of the two coordinators at the centre. “The few who don’t, get home-schooled here.” The children return at the centre after school for recreation — sports, art, theatre and more. “We try and give them a safe, nurturing environment," says Alok, “and hope that it gives them the impetus to change their lives.”

Sadly, this impetus is not very strong. “Children here can easily earn as much as Rs 100 a day simply by begging or doing odd jobs. This makes them (and their parents) resistant to the idea of losing that income by coming to the daycare centre,” says Sinha.

Strains of qawwali waft up as we stand on the centre’s terrace that overlooks Jama Masjid on one side and Red Fort on the other. This area, Sinha says, is home to at least 10,000 homeless people. “Every single child here encounters physical and sexual abuse. Many are on drugs,” he says. Consequently, many of them find it hard to live in a community again.

Daycare centre's co-ordinator Satyamev Alok with local homeless kids

Over the years, Sinha says he has lost count of the homeless children he has known who have dropped off Jamghat’s radar. “Some died of drug overdoses, others have simply disappeared.” Typically, the administration does little to trace them. “As a society, we often dehumanise the homeless, not see them as people,” he says. To change this, Jamghat organises “night walks” to familiarise people with the realities of homeless life in Old Delhi. Guided by children rescued from these very streets, visitors see the mosques, temples and gurdwaras that give food to the homeless every day, and the markets that provide them with a rough but ready source of income.

Mainstreaming is very much on Sinha’s mind these days. “Skill development and education can help integrate street children into society, and to this end, we now want to build a large vocational training centre in Old Delhi this year as soon as we’re able to raise funds for it,” he says.

Funds are a perpetual struggle. The annual operational cost of its three centres is Rs 84 lakh, which Jamghat has raised through institutional, corporate and individual donors such as Royal Bank of Scotland, MakeMyTrip, iPartner and Global Fund for Children.

As we walk through Jama Masjid, scores of children not yet with Jamghat swarm Sinha. He sighs. The task ahead is huge and many of these children may never even reap its benefits.

Learn more at jamghat.org or follow them on Facebook; next fortnight, the story of a cancer support network that has pioneered palliative homecare for cancer patients in India