Street Presence
Street presence programme is intended to rescue and mainstream the street children living in the city of Gulbarga. The staffs appointed under the project are in contact with the children on the streets and cover areas like Railway Station, Bus Stands, Slums and Markets. The children who are at risk, the runaway children, missing children and other vulnerable children from slums and streets were contacted and motivated to return to their families, rehabilitation centres and enroll in formal schools for continuing their education. Those who are not ready to take part in any kind of these rehabilitation measures were motivated to attend the street education programme and other services of the project. They are slowly guided towards the rehabilitation process by restoring them back to their families or by placing them in Child Care Institutions such as DB PYaR, Government hostels, etc. The project includes:
a. Reach Out
The project covers 16 areas of Gulbarga city. At present DB PYaR is in contact with 1741children and youth living in the streets and slums. Most of them are Child Labourers, RagPickers, School Dropouts, Shoe Shiners, Physically Challenged, Children working in garages and brick kiln, Children working in road side eateries, etc., who just roam around on the streets. The project also reached out to the out of school children/school dropouts from the outskirt villages of the city.
b. Orientation Programmes
The regular contact with the children has helped DB PYaR to establish a good rapport with them. The organization conducts orientation programmes, cultural programmes and games to motivate the children to associate with the project and get the maximum benefit from it.
c. Street Education (Day School)
DB PYaR is conducting day school (remedial and motivational education) for the children in their working areas. Children in the age group of 8 – 14 years are attending these classes. The duration of the class is two hours, normally in the evening time. The day school is well received by the children and more and more children are joining in the school. This is the first step of the rehabilitation process of these vulnerable children. Later the children will be motivated to return to their homes, child care centres (for orphans, etc) and attend regular schools.
d. Handicapped Allowance
During the house visits in the slum area/outskirt villages we came across many handicapped children who sought our help in getting the handicapped allowance from Government. Our staff collected the details of such children, approached the concerned department and succeeded in getting handicapped allowance for these children.
