Around 80 kilometres from the island city of Mumbai, NH-61 leads to Mamnoli, a small village. A tiny board near the village announces a project which has successfully reunited 8,000 street children with their families across the country.
An uphill walk on the cow-dung filled kuchcha path leads to a modest five-room shelter where children have just finished munching on goodies. As the correspondent enters, they all stand in welcome. Before their lunch, they have finished a session each of yoga, physical drill and hobby class. This is their third week of ‘transformation camp,’ and within two more weeks, they will, to their surprise, be reunited with their families.
“We believe nobody is an orphan. Every child has a home that she or he has left behind. Unfortunately, the system talks only of missing children, without recognising that missing children are different from runaway children. You have to work on runaway children to help them go back to their homes,” said Vijay Jadhav, founder and director of Samatol, the NGO which reunites street children with their families.
Street children generally do odd jobs to sustain themselves. They beg, steal, sell small items and collect garbage. Sexual abuse and addiction are rampant among them. “Their vulnerability easily lands them in the net of addiction and criminalisation. Children are the key to a country’s prosperity. They should not be allowed to be wasted like this,” Mr. Jadhav said.
The current five-week camp is Samatol’s 22nd transformation camp, and like the previous batches, has children from various States such as Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Tripura. “One boy ran away from his home in Jharkhand to become a film star like Shah Rukh Khan,” Mr. Jadhav said.
Guide to good life
Each camp has 25 children who are guided on a good life — through exercise, hobbies and group activities. They are taught, by a group of experienced volunteers, about “good touch and bad touch, good family and bad family.”
The toughest task is to convince a child to come to the shelter, say activists. Thereafter, the names of the children are registered at the local police station. The activists have an identity card issued by the Mumbai Police.
Change begins
“On the first day, children don’t know what to expect from the camp. They are sceptical, scared to share their details or go back home. But by the last week, they narrate their stories, and desperately want to return home,” said Lata Vankhade, a volunteer.
But the five-week journey is testing time for the volunteers too. “Initially, a few of them do all kinds of things to run away. They cut the iron grills, break open locks and steal from the office. We have to keep a watchful eye on them,” says Lata.
To know the children’s address, the volunteers use various techniques. “We make the children indicate their house through a drawing. This technique has never failed. Children draw their homes, the nearby landmarks, the path towards the nearest railway station,” she said.
Finally, the reunion
At the end of the fifth week, children put up a programme, just like a school gathering. Without their knowledge, Samatol would have already contacted their parents and invited them to the gathering. “The reunion is a very emotional moment for the parents as well as the children. After the performance, the children are surprised to see their parents. This function always leaves us all with moist eyes,” said Sanjay Kelkar, former legislator and Thane Samiti head of Samatol.
Samatol, which runs on donations, has received various awards for its work. It has also networked with different organisations to facilitate vocational training for older children who refuse to return home due to poor family conditions.
