“Chinnara Thangudhama”, a transit home for destitute children, was inaugurated here on Tuesday.
The home is located at Bejai-Kapikad road. At present, 54 children, many of them being school dropouts, are housed here, according to a press release.
K.T. Shailaja Bhat, Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat president, after inaugurating the function, said that the transit home was given Rs. 10 lakh this year while it was given Rs. 15 lakh last year. No child should be deprived of education, she said.
The home has children aged between 6 and 14. Of these, 18 are studying in the school at the transit home and they will be shifted to a residential school in Belthangady depending on decisions taken by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan officials.
The children have been identified by the Prajna Counselling Centre, which gets the approval of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) before admitting them to the transit home.
Geetha S., Assistant Project Co-ordinator, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, said: “We need NGOs’ help...we cannot do everything ourselves.”. The children were either homeless and had single or did not have parents. If not for the transit home, these children would be on the streets. “There is a history, a story, to every child,” she said. From 2011-12 to now, 35 children from Scheduled Castes, one from Scheduled Tribes, seven from religious minorities, and 32 belonging to OBCs, had registered at the home. Of them, 18 had never been to school earlier and 34 are dropouts. Twenty one children have been sent home to their parents, she said.
