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- Ashray Ashray Basti Vikas Kendra, Tagore Road, Kamla Market, New Delhi - http://www.cry.org/ - CRY Projects on India Together |
Ashray works with Delhi's homeless youth
November 2001: Raju is an 18 year-old street educator and volunteer with Ashray, the Association for Social Health and Rehabilitative Action by Youth, a CRY-supported project in the New Delhi Railway station area, near the Ajmeri gate terminal. Raju's tryst with Ashray began when he ran away from home at the age of 8 and arrived at the station. The station would be his home and his work area. Raju would be harassed daily by the dadas - the "boss log" - at the railway station who would take away his money for their pleasures of alcohol, or by the police, who would catch him and take away his meagre earnings from him. These circumstances ruled his life; Raju continually worried about his daily food, sleep and freedom.
Until he met Arvind Pandey, 20 years of age and a street educator with Ashray since 1998. It was Arvind's job to go to the station daily and identify the kids who come there or are left there by their parents and get them safely to Ashray and then place them at a proper home. Arvind would scout the station platforms daily. He formed contact points with the kids of the station where he would meet them and regularly interact with them, teach them some math (that is needed to manage their money), advise them on safety and precautions and counsel them on their problems like abuse (which is common amongst these children) and provide assistance in case of medical emergencies.
When Raju decided to take up Arvind's invitation to visit Ashray's center, he did it with skepticism and distrust. Will they take away my money too, he thought. Will they hand me over to the police? However, at Ashray, Raju found friends, people who related to him, could understand his problems. More importantly, he found training in vocational skills, something he needed badly since he lacked a formal education. Hailing from Lucknow he knew a little chikan work, and he took up stitching as a vocation.
Today Raju makes jute bags and other
artifacts taught to him at Ashray's center, besides learning to read and
write. In addition, Raju was sent for a Vikramshila Education Resource
Society training workshop where he was trained to be a street educator.
His new found skills at teaching children without books and slates,
through role-play and other games designed to learn, gave him confidence
and motivation, and the sincerity with which he approaches his work is
heartening to see. Raju is a role model for all the kids that he interacts
with or teaches at platform no.12 at ND Rly station. In his own words:
"pehle meri naiya majhdar mein thi, ab mujhe kinara mil gaya hai"
[earlier, my boat was caught in mid-stream, but now I have found the
shore].
Ashray is a grassroots level initiative that works with children like Raju who find themselves on the streets with no one to look up to and no one to turn to for help. It works towards providing these children with elementary education, teaching them the skills that will see them through troubled times; giving them shelter and support and training them to become self-sufficient. Ashray also provides these children protection from the local dadas who use them for begging or vending. It helps the older children get small jobs like at a dhaba (road side food stall) or riding a public transport three-wheeler on ent. Ashray programmes are such that they ensure the children learn a skill and receive vocational training so as to make them independent in the long run.
Rajesh Munshi
November 2001
Editor's Note: India Together is
working with Child Relief and You (CRY) to regularly bring stories of
successful development efforts on behalf of the children of
India. For more information on the project please contact the
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