On our last weekend, we finally arranged to visit the Salaam Baalak Trust, a wonderful nonprofit that provides support to India's street kids. The program was instituted about 25 years ago from the proceeds from a Bollywood movie about street kids. Salaam runs several shelters for kids and provides medical, counseling, and social work services.
The Trust cordinates street walks led by guides who once lived on the street and are now working at Salaam. They explain life on the street and organize a tour of one of the shelters near the Delhi train station where many kids live.
About a third of the kids at the shelter have no family. The balance leave home for a variety of reasons, including abject poverty and abuse -- and like immigrants everywhere trying to search for a better life in the city.
During the tour our guide shared his personal story, including leaving his home in rural India when he was about 7 years old. He is about 19 years old now but doesn't know his birthday or his real age. He linked up with Salaam 5 years ago. Transformative experience.
The shelters can only be described as organized chaos with lots of love. The two rooms serve as classrooms/playrooms by day and dorms at night for the 30 children who commit to staying there. One little boy laughed and cried intermittently during our stay. He had arrived at Salaam that week and was deeply missing home; his counselor told us that it takes a while after arriving at the Center for many of the kids to start to thrive. The kids eagerly engaged, received and gave hugs, and played games. They loved the contact. A few tried out their English but most communication was nonverbal or in Hindi.
Tough stuff and yet again we realized how blessed we are.
Salaam Baalak Trust, an example of the committed work that takes place in India.
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| Caroline all smiles in a classroom that also serves as a bedroom for 20 boys. |
The rooms were almost as crowded as the railway station but the children didn't seem to mind.
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| A very competitive thumb wrestler. |
