Site visit report (Madhav) SAATHI: Kamathipura, Mumbai. Site Visit Report. Date: Friday July 19, 2002. Background: Saathi is a project in Mumbai city, that works with street children. Saathi proposed a project for WAH2002, but the proposal could not make it to the final list. This site visit is being performed on the behest of Gautam Shetty from Asha Cleveland. Saathi works with street children between Mumbai Central and Byculla railway stations. This area contains a well-known red-light district called Kamathipura. Mumbai Central station is a hub for outstation trains on Western Railway routes to Gujarat, Rajasthan and Delhi. Byculla is a very crowded local delivery hub where vegetables and other commodities are delivered everyday. Thus this region is extremely active during the day and there is a lot of loading and unloading work going which the street children can engage themselves in. In addition there are a few outlets for free meals and there are cheap movie theatres so this place is a very comfortable place for street children to live. Saathi provides day care centres for these kids and in some cases a night shelter, either of their own or in the premises of an organization called Door Step. At the centre, they carry out a number of activities like counselling, medical help, meals, non-formal education, vocational skills training, micro credit, etc. Over the past 5 years, Saathi has grouwn to be a very active and resourceful organization that has contacts with a number of other groups working in the area. Getting There: I met Roshni Nair, one of the founders of Saathi and the present vice-president near her house in Tardeo, Mumbai around 945am. From there we first took a taxi to the girls shelter near Mumbai Central Railway station. The girls shelter was located on the first floor of the Municipal school in the area. After spending some time at the girls shelter, we took a cab to the boys shelter which is located in the Municipal School in Kamathipura, at one end of the red-light district. The taxis took about 5 mins each. The Visit: The girls shelter consisted of a room about 8m X 8m. The room had very little by way of school furniture, but had a little cooking stove with utensils, a few cupboards with books and class materials, a computer desk on one side, a sewing machine and some play things. There were about 10 girls at the center, each of 15 years or higher and two little boys. There were a couple of workers and a maid. Some girls were practising dance and some others were reading/cooking etc. They were all very excited to see Roshni. We went in and sat on the floor at one end of the room. As Roshni was talking to the other workers, one of the staff, Bhakti told me about the activities in the centre. The shelter opens at about 9 am and runs till about 5:30 pm. Their activities during the day involve some cooking, sewing, song and dance practice and some non-formal education. They also work with a group called AMSA (CHECK) and carry out certain activities related to education. Children on the street are a very peculiar kind of group. These children have no home, but they do various jobs and support themselves. Common jobs include rag picking and catering labor. Because of this, these street children are extremely independent and despite having no formal education are very street smart. This makes it very difficult for them to go to an organized school. The first step is to get them to do things in a group. Living on the street makes them susceptible to diseases, police brutality and drugs. In addition they often get into failed alliances. The girls on the street are often victims of abuse and are often sold to the red-light districts once they reach a particular age. It is indeed one of the most striking features of street girls. You see the little ones but not the others. All this trauma makes dealing with girls on the street very difficult. Their behaviour is often very erratic and uncontrolled. Also, before they come to the Saathi fold, they do not have trust in people. To get them to come to the shelter is itself a very difficult task that has to be done in a very sensitive manner. Thus outreach in Saathi is a very important component of their work. They network with a number of organizations, police and the government groups to pick up the children. In addition, they have a group of people who go out on the street and try to make acquaintances with children and see if they are not satisfied with their lot and get them to come to the shelter. This is again a fairly long process. The Saathi founders Manzoor, Altaf and Roshni spent a number of years studying the street children before founding Saathi. The girls at Saathi find a lot of love and care. In addition their training in a few skills gives them the self esteem that they need to mix with the rest of the society. When the girls get into Saathi, they are in a place with regulations, so they learn how to live with them. Initially they are very rebellious and often violent, but in course of time they find the love and trust in other people that changes them. At the centre they carry out activities like sewing, dance training, cooking and education. All these activities help in raising the confidence and self-esteem of the girls, in addition to the skills they learn. Saathi tries to reunite the girls with their families in some cases. This is based on the assessment of the children and their families. In some cases, Saathi helps them to get back to school, and in others, Saathi provides them skills to gain an independent living. The day I was at Saathi, there was a little boy who was about 3-4 years old, lost and separated from his parents. The police found him and immediately informed Saathi. So, he was sitting in the girls shelter, and playing and running around, but he would not talk. The girls at Saathi were looking after him and trying to talk to him in various languages to see if he would respond. It was incredible to see this little boy running, smiling and playing but not talking. I found out a few days later from Roshni, that the boy was reunited with his parents. The nature of Saathi's work involves working with Police, Government and other NGOs and this case illustrates this point. There was a girl at Saathi named Kaajal from Bangladesh who had an interesting story. One day while she went out to buy vegetables or something innocuous, she was taken away by some relative and sent to Kolkata. She finally ended up in the streets of Mumbai where Saathi spotted her, but what she went through in between could be pretty scary. At Saathi, she really opened out to the people. The day I was there, she was very proud of some breakfast dish she made, consisting of noodles, eggs and vegetables and wanted Roshni and me to try it. We turned the offers down as we had to go to the boys shelter, but as we were leaving, Kaajal and a few other girls hugged and kissed Roshni and asked her when she would be back. Kaajal was to be reunited with her family in Bangladesh in about 2 weeks. This case again highlights the effect that such shelters have on the mind set of the people who go to it. The boys shelter was located on the ground floor of the municipal school in Kamathipura. The day I went there, most of the children had gone out on to a camp in Navi Mumbai. There wer a few kids when we entered and a few workers. The room was about the same size as the other room, but full of newspaper bags, carry bags and note-pads made by the boys. This room served as the main center for all these activities. Roshni introduced me to two of the workers, Indu and Inam. Inam is a 21 year old boy, who is in charge of the newspaper bag manufacturing process at Saathi. Indu is the seniormost worker in Saathi and helps in the general operations of the boys shelter. First Indu told me some of the activities of the center. This was one of the highlights of the visit. Indu spoke really beautifully about her views on the meaning of education is and the role of Saathi. According to Indu, education definitely involves learning to read/write, but in addition it should give the person something that makes him know himself better so he can be more honest with himself. With this goal in mind, she explained how Saathi is trying to use a variety of teaching techniques to cater to education of Street Children.Some prominent methods are drama activities and skills workshops to produce simple things. One of the staff, Raja works on using drama as a means to educate these people and also give them confidence necessary to live in a society. Conventional education often disheartens the street children since it is fairly removed from their existence. Moreover, the training and testing methods cause a lot of harm to the self-esteem of these kids. The methods used by Saathi are very crucial in getting the child off the street and learning. The kids at Saathi are from all parts of the country. Once they come to the shelter, they feel love and care of the other people. The kids often get hired in "wadi"(caterer) jobs and travel to different parts of the country. They are able to save some money in these jobs. At Saathi, they realize the value of saving money. Roshni gave me the example of how some kids decided that they wanted to become car drivers and therefore started saving money to take driving lessons. Inam spoke to me about the newspaper bag manufacturing process. Inam did schooling until Std 8 due to family problems. He spoke beautifully about the philosophy behind these processes. After the initial phase when these activities were started more for the process of activities than for actual business, Inam feels that this process can be commercialized. Since the bags are produced at a very fast rate, he feels that with a little control in quality, they can easily be used in the market. Roshni is in talks with a Levi's store to get them to use these bags. Being of newspaper, these bags are not waterproof but they are good enough for most purposes and have the added advantage of being environmentally friendly. Getting income from the bags will do the boys morale a lot of good. After that Roshni showed me a video on Saathi's "group home". The group home is a concept that addresses the problem of housing children under institutional and their return to society. Once Saathi feels that the kids are ready for it, 5-6 kids move into a group home in a rented house in a slum in Santa Cruz. The place is fairly clean. Saathi puts in the deposit, but the kids work on the rent. Living together gives the children an opportunity to understand the responsibilities associated and the process of taking joint decisions. At the same time the children are somewhat protected from the rough street life. The video shows how the children take various decisions on whether they should have rules in the home and whether they should purchase a TV, etc. After a year or so at the group homes, some of the children move out to rent a place of their own. After the video, Roshni filled me with some details about QICCA, Quality Institutional Child Care and Alternatives. This is an effort of CRY with the help of Govt of Maharashtra, for which they have chosen Saathi as a partner institution in Maharashtra. The aim is to look at the problems related to institutional Child Care and to come up with a methodology for quality control in these institutions. The govt. of Maharashtra has been very supportive of the effort but has mentioned that they will not be able to fund it. Talking to Roshni, it seemed that QICCA was running really well and the responses they got so far were really good. We left the school after some other discussions. It was about 230 pm and I headed back home. People at Saathi: Roshni Nair: Roshni is probably in her early 30s was teaching at TISS till 1995. She quit to work with street children and formed Saathi in 1997. Her role in Saathi is to look for sponsors and overall organization in Saathi. Altaf and Manzoor: I did not meet them but I heard a little about them from Roshni and the founders of SWEET. They were students at Nirmala Niketan CSW (with Ashish Chaddha). From what I learnt about them, they spent many years working with street childrn before they founded Saathi. Indu: Indu is an orphan and little is known about her parents. She came up in Child care institutions herself, but was extremely determined and studied till class 12. After that she took various courses and was working at VOICE when Saathi people met her and asked her to work here. She takes care of the running of the boys shelter and is known for her remarkable abilitiy to deal with adolescent street kids. Indu is probably in her late 30s. Bhakti: Bhakti has a masters in Social work. She runs the activities at the girls shelter. Deepali: Deepali is the outreach person at the girls shelter. Inam: Inam is in charge of the newspaper bag manufacturing process at the boys shelter. Conclusions: Saathi is doing work in a much needed area where making progress and judging the work are both extremely difficult. As an organization, Saathi is very well known and has a number of partners in their efforts. After the very cautious start, Saathi is really growing fast. Saathi also seems to share resources with other NGOs and other organizations. For example the girls use the facilities of Door Step for night shelter. There is an organization that donates lunch to Saathi. Saathi needs funding to find a more permanent girls shelter and some extra space for the boys shelter. In addition they want QICCA funding but this has been taken care of. The progress and the efforts of Saathi in the next few years will be very interesting and educating for Asha. I recommend that Asha should fund Saathi as long as they can.