All children deserve the privilege of being a child
Day care for children too young for school
In July 2019, the doors opened to the very first activity center in the slum area of Khaldar. In March 2021, two more were opened—one in Topsia and one in Bakri Patti—and in 2022, the fourth center opened in Park Circus. Our fifth activity center, Pippi House, opened in 2023 in the Red Light District of Bowbazar. The centers are aimed at children who are too young to start school and who lack stimulation and engagement in their daily lives, as well as school-aged children who need healthy, positive, and capacity-building activities to participate in during the afternoons.
Before the centers opened, parents had no place to leave their youngest children during the day while they worked to provide food for the family. This meant that the children were sent out to beg or help sort through garbage, which is the primary source of income for residents of the slums. Alternatively, their older siblings had to stay home to take care of them, thereby losing their own opportunity for an education and the chance to be children.
Early intervention is more likely to breake patterns
Our main goal with these centers is to minimize the amount of time, the children spend on the streets and join our projects as early as possible. If they spend too much time in the harsh surroundings of the streets, without anything to do and without any adult supervision, they can easily end up in bad company and get influenced in a negative way. That way, they are likely to end up reproducing the social inheritance that we struggle so hard to help them break, if we do not reach them in time.
Time to play, learn and grow
All weekdays between 12.30 AM – 4.30 PM, more than 400 children stay in these centers. Here they play, learn and grow. In addition, we offer snacks, so that they are able to concentrate on learning activities and get stimulated with yoga, games, school assignments, dance, singing etc. Once week our mobile health clinics come by and perform health checks and treatments of the children.
Preparing children for their next chapter in life
Whenever the children are old enough to go to school, we offer admission to our Sealdah School & After-School Care, which is close to where they live. Until then the main purpose of our activity centers is to prepare the children for this chapter, so that they can start this new chaper with close friendships, self-confidence, and other valuable Ԭsocial competences.
The centres belong to the local community
The purpose of the centres is not only to minimize the amount of time, they spend on the streets, and join our projects as early as possible. It is also crucial for us to build strong relations within the local community, in order to establish our effort in the areas. Not only do these centers belong to the children. They also belong to the local communities in general. In order to promote local ownership, we allow citizens of the slums to use the centers for meetings or the like.
