Childhood reclaimed

The Deep Griha Society runs a home for destitute children called City of Child. I’ve been fortunate enough to spend a number of days there, teaching a group of boys who have a big English exam coming up. It’s a big deal for them. When they leave school they will be taken back to Pune to live in a hostel and find their way in the world. Passing their exams is a ticket to a better life.

The home is in the village of Kasurdi, 45km away from Pune. The project targets some of the most vulnerable children from Pune’s slums, identified by Deep Griha’s fieldworkers. The children (boys and girls up to puberty, boys only afterwards) are all either orphans or come from single-parent families who are unable to provide sufficient care for them. The kids get a safe home where they can study, play and develop.

I found it very moving to see 35 children of such a range of ages living together in such a tight knit community. There’s a great atmosphere. I would judge there to be just the right amount of discipline. The day is sufficiently structured to keep the children busy, but they don’t have all the pointless roll calls and enforced shoe polishing I remember from boarding school.

After getting up all of the kids get involved in cleaning their shared home, sweeping up leaves from the paths in a ten-minute burst of activity. It was lovely to see the youngest resident, Guru (five-and-a-half), happily piling up plastic chairs and really getting into the spirit of the place.

I found it hard to believe that the kids could smile when I heard about some of their backgrounds. One boy ended up at City of Child after his father doused his mother in kerosene and set her alight. Sadly this is quite a frequent crime in parts of India, often linked to issues over dowry payments. I just today heard of a similar case in Pune. The victim was a relative of an employee at DGS. Her husband came home drunk and set her alight. She died in hospital two weeks later after getting an infection in the dirty public ward. 


A horrific crime, yet nothing will happen to the husband. After the police and ambulance arrived to attend to the woman’s screams, she immediately told them it had been an accident of her own doing. So impossibly sad, and a reminder to me when I look at all the colour that there's a darker side to India. 

On a brighter note, this chap is a City of Child success story. Kishur lived at the residence for many years, passed his exams and now teaches at Deep Griha’s English-medium school close to City of Child. He still lives at the residence during the week and is a great role model for this remarkable group of kids.

If anyone would like to sponsor a child you can make a huge difference by doing so. For a modest annual donation you can provide a child with a balanced nutrition-rich daily meal, educational materials, clothes and shoes, medical care and a birthday party. You’ll also get progress reports. I’m certainly going to sponsor a child when I leave India, and I can testify that the money is well spent. You can read more here:

http://deepgriha.org/index.php/programmes/aadhar-kendra