Experience:
Out of the 10 odd years that I spent with NEW HOPE I gained not
just training to be a capable project implementor and manager, but a
number of direct project responsibilities and experiences:
· 3 year's preparing and presenting the monthly reports of the
NEWHOPE Children's Home programmes-in Andhra
-Pradesh. This involved monitoring both
the financial cost and the 'care level' of children being looked after.
· Following the Orissa Cyclone in 1999 I was involved in setting
up the post cyclone 'Stayput' programmes on railway -platforms.
· Preparation and translation of the Home manuals and development
of the `Child to Child` concept into-the
programmes.
· Monitoring and Reporting for the HIV/AIDS project that covered
the Gunupur Sub-Division of Rayagada District, Orissa--
including all schools. The monitoring position was for 2 years.
· Management of the Govt. of Andhra Pradesh state AIDS Cell programmes
in Vizianagaram District for 1 year. This --included
planning, implementation and reporting of the work carried out.
Seminars and Training:
· I am a promoter of the concept of changing the name of 'leprosy'
to H.D (Hansen's Disease) to bring about a lower
stigmatisation problem. I have attended a number of workshops
(All India Leprosy Workers Congress, IDEA --International)
on this and presented papers at same.
· A fund-raising workshop run by the South Asia Fund-raising
Group for 6 days in Hyderabad.
· Project Planning and Management training, at Cenderet, Bhubaneswar
for 7 days.
Office Experience:
It would be fair to say that I have managed office administration
including staff of up to 5 persons over the last 5 years. I basically
know all needed computer programmes. I am also familiar with report
formats as used by the UK Community Fund.
Present Position:
In January 2000 I decided to take all of this background and experience
and branch out on my own. I have founded an organisation, HEARTS
(Health, Education, Awareness, Rehabilitation and Treatment Society)
and have established a home for Street Children in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh,
India.
In June 2001 I had
the opportunity to work part time as a co-ordinator for a UK based NGO,
The Railway Children. This involves visiting, reporting of the funded
NGO partners and supervising childcare.
HEARTS - ACTIVITIES REPORT - DECEMBER 2002
Background:
As we look back over the past year, we feel a great sense of achievement.
A little cash/kind contributed by our donors and benefactors, a few
words of wisdom/advice from our experienced elders and well wishers.
A little time spent by the Management Committee members with assistance
of our dedicated staff has brought light and life to the burdensome
existence of our children who subsist from day to day.
You would be happy
to note for example, that donations from the UK have made it possible
for a number of Street Children to live in our Night Shelter rather
than on Streets or Platforms.
To us the issue
of children's rights lies at the heart of the Indian dream. For the
child is TODAY - and it is a society built on the promise of Today rather
than the ever-repetitive cycles of the past that can truly be free.
By freeing the child, we are in effect freeing our present to create
the golden dreams of tomorrow.
We believe that
India's most powerful and potent resource is YOU - the people who support
our work. All the children, whose lives you have touched, have affirmed
our faith in YOU. With your support we can and will see this freedom
for children. We can assure you that any contribution in cash/kind will
go a long way to build the self-reliance of these less fortunate children.
NIGHT SHELTER FOR STREET CHILDREN
The target groups are socially disabled and the majority have economically
poor family backgrounds. These children are runaways from home for social
and economical reasons.
They live in dangerous conditions on the platforms. They sweep compartments,
beg and steal to survive, are abused by gangsters through drugs or sexually
(which can lead to HIV/AIDS).
Our area of operation
is the Guntur Railway station, Andhra Pradesh. The target population
are the street children found begging and living on the railway station
platforms, who are runaway, abandoned and/or abused. On an average 35
- 40 children can be seen every day on the platforms.
The children coming
to the Guntur Railway can be orphaned, abandoned or runaway. They live
and sleep on the streets or at the stations. For them, violence and
abuse are a way of life. Some, as little as six, survive through begging,
street trading and petty crime. Many are at the mercy of perverts, drug
dealers and abusers. Railway stations are magnets for these `forgotten
children'. They arrive on trains or go there in search of food, shelter
and companionship.
HEARTS is a point of contact for children coming on to the platforms
and we provide them with help and advice and seek to reunite them with
their families, or offer them shelter and care. Our Night Shelter gets
them off the streets and offers a steppingstone to a better life. In
the Night Shelter the children are offered nutrition, health & hygiene,
care, education, vocational training, advocacy and protection from abuse.
The children that we target are between 6 and 18 years.
Objectives:
a) To meet children found begging and living on the Guntur railway
station and offer them emergency services i.e. snacks, first aid and
counselling and , where possible, reunite them with their families.
b) To identify these children and accommodate them in a Night Shelter
where they can get nutritional, medical and recreational needs.
c) To offer them
Vocational Training, Formal and Non-Formal Education.
d) To counsel the
children considered capable of going to school where they can be integrated
into the formal system ---through special
arrangements with local educational institutions.
e) To use this elementary
stage as a means to get older children into apprenticeships that will
ensure they are able to ---become employed
and self-reliant.
f) To offer them
Health Education classes on various diseases and also awareness on STDs
- HIV/AIDS.
