Blair shocked by India's street children
04 October 2005
UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, got a chance to talk to street children involved in an Alliance-supported project last month. The visit to Salaam Baalak Trust, an organisation that works with street children in New Delhi, gave Tony Blair a chance to see at first hand what life is like for these children.
Sasi Kumar, director of programmes at Alliance India, introduced Tony Blair to a group of seven to ten year-olds at the project who were drawing pictures, offering a glimpse into the realities of life that many young street children in India experience.
One boy showed drawings of himself sleeping in the street, getting beaten up by the police, harassed by shopkeepers and selling balloons. Tony Blair asked a girl why she had drawn a picture of a house and she replied that it was because she had no house.
Tony Blair, visibly shaken by this glimpse into their lives, asked Sasi Kumar how their problems could be solved. The lasting solution, he was told, is to reduce poverty. Programmes like Salaam Baalak Trust offer children basic shelter, education and HIV prevention.
Salaam Baalak Trust, an implementing non-governmental organisation of the Alliance’s home and community-based care and support programme in New Delhi, was set up in 1988 to protect and care for street children in and around the railway station, crowed bus stops, business areas and slums of New Delhi. It reaches over 5,000 street and vulnerable children with shelter homes, counselling, medical and educational support, and skills-building programmes. It uses peer educators to work with children around HIV/AIDS, and provides care and counselling, as well as networking and advocacy initiatives with key stakeholders.
