Project on Mainstreaming and Rehabilitating

Children in Mumbai Remand Homes

Mr. Arthur Thangiah, Chairman Sahaara Charitable Society “It has been a pleasure working with you. Thank you for all your support to the work of Sahaara! With Smile's partnership we have sown seeds of hope into young minds and hearts in observation homes of Mumbai. These children are equipped with education through our joint endeavour of Sahaara and Smile. Opportunities for a bright future are thus opened up in these young lives. Our future vision is to continue equipping and stimulating generations of institutionalized youth, through education, who will emerge as the backbone of Indian society in the years to come.”

Sahaara Charitable Organization and Smile Foundation has come together to provide Supplementary Education, Tracking Children and run Mainstreaming programme for children in Observation & Remand Homes of Mumbai.

The project covers six centres in Mumbai, which include Bal Kalyan Nagari, Chembur Children’s home, David Sasoon and Umarkhadi Observation Home. Counselling and other rehabilitation efforts are also done simultaneously.

About The Project

The children staying in the Remand / Observation homes are the ones in need of care and protection as they are from trying and conflicting situations. They are usually placed in these homes by the Child Welfare Committees and Juvenile Courts.

Their life situation has an adverse effect in the normal development of these children. These children are the most affected in terms of education, i.e. poor academic performance, low grades and ultimately drop out from education.

These children are mainly from lower social economic strata, orphan, destitute or children from families in crisis. These children stay in these homes till further rehabilitation. Such children are the most vulnerable and are subject to harmful effects of long institutionalization.

During their stay in these centres, these children do their schooling in government schools along with other inmates. Owing to need and demand, most of these homes are overcrowded where the children do not receive any individual attention and care, sometimes due to low motivation and inexperience of caregivers in a stressed and demanding environment.

The project proposes to provide support to these disadvantaged children in their education. Keeping this in mind, the organisation has set up remediation centres at six Remand / Observation Homes, wherein these children are given support in formal education for their overall development.

Three of these centres are at Bal Kalyan Nagari, Chembur Children’s home, David Sasoon and Umarkhadi Observation Home. In addition, schools and medical and health check-up programmes twice in a year are also part of this project. The emphasis is on the quality of service delivery and regular monitoring in order to make the intervention effective.

About The Partner

Sahaara Charitable Organization was started in year 1994, with a mission to reach out to children in the slums of Vasai and Colaba through pre primary educational centers. Since then the organization has expanded with different projects reaching out to underprivileged children in slums and remand homes, eunuchs, commercial sex workers, different diseases affected like hansoms disease, disaster struck people and prisoners etc.

Presently, Sahaara is running projects on pre primary centres and Balwadi’s in slums, adult literacy classes, Project Azad in 4 prisons at Byculla, Mumbai. It is also running home for destitute boys, Project Pragati for children in remand homes, teachers training projects and interventions with CSWs in 3 red light areas for their rehabilitation through vocational training. The main vision is to help the helpless section of the society through establishing contact centres, care centres to help in the mainstreaming of the marginalized sections.

Sahaara Charitable Organization has also been supported by USAID as well as individual donors and local churches.

Unique Tracking Component in the Project

This is a unique aspect of the project, which is implemented through Umerkhadi Observation Home, one of the largest Observation Homes in Mumbai. This component is to prevent dropouts and continue their education when they leave the Observation Homes, and further to plan their rehabilitation and reintegration with their families. Every effort is made to promote their formal education, develop attachment with their family and school.

Special Focus

• To ensure quality education to all children (between 4 to 14 yrs) in the Observation / Children’s Homes in the city of Mumbai

• To track meticulously the development of children and their rehabilitation process

• To prevent dropouts from school once the children are out of institutional care.

The project aims at providing quality education on one hand and prevents the drop out ratio especially when the institutionalized children are deinstitutionalized, on the other hand.