“You Stood By Me And I Stood Tall .”
Street children are a common sight on any of our major Road or Railway stations. For some children streets are where they look to find their home, their parents, their playground, their education, their health care and their love.
For others the streets are where they work, from as early as sunrise to as late as midnight. The reality of the street child is the naked and vicious face of poverty, sickness and exploitation. The tragedy is that those who bear it are themselves innocent, lonely and frightened young children.
Street children are those unfortunate children who basically
- Have only intermittent contact with parents or family, but live most of the time with other street children in the city streets or are on the move.
- Have been literally abandoned by their parents /relatives found themselves on the street from the beginning because of family problems or have chosen to leave home due to some kind of constant abuse.
Those who have run away from home can further be separated into two categories.
- Those who have an unpleasant or traumatic home environment. They experience family problems they are unable to solve example alcoholism, child abuse, ill treatment by step parents, unemployment and poverty.
- Some run away from home to experience the excitement of city life, glamorized
by magazines and movies.
Most street children find themselves some work , even though they may not be steady and lose jobs regularly. Many think of rag picking as a job, or are lured into bonded work or ’ work camps’, that they are unable to escape from, due to unscrupulous and cruel priorities or middlemen.
The health condition of street children is generally poor. Many suffer from chronic diseases like TB, leprosy, typhoid, malaria, and jaundice and liver/kidney disorders. Scabies, gangrene, broken limbs and epilepsy are common. Venereal disease is rampant among older ones.HIV and AIDS cases are now widely seen. Most street children are exposed to dirt, smoke and other environment hazards. They are constantly exposed to intense sun, rain and cold.
STREET CHILDREN ACTIVITIES IN INDIA
Street children learn to cope with life on the streets very quickly. They learn to live off the street. Street children in India earn a living by
- Collecting and selling waste paper, plastic, scrap, metal.
- Cleaning cars and two wheelers
- Selling water, sweets, biscuits etc
- Selling newspaper and flowers on streets
- Making and selling flower garlands
- Begging, pimping, pick pocketing, stealing
- Coolie work or working in small hotels.
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Poverty is the primary cause of the street children crisis. Poverty dumps a crowd of problems onto a child. Not only do these problems cause immediate suffering, they also conspire to keep a child poor throughout his/her life.
The root cause of poverty are beyond a single NGO’s power to change, but India believes in helping where it can.
According to the UN High Commissioner for human rights India has the largest population of street children in the world-around 18 million, of whom nearly 2,50,000 live on the streets of Mumbai.
Have you ever thought of bringing a difference in the life of these lovely unfortunate kids. Could we bring a smile on their faces, could we give them the love and affection they are deprived of ?
We as students can bring about this change. A request top all to join this revolution by contributing in your own small way towards this noble cause!!
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ROLL NO: 12
