Bio toilets

More than 50 % of the 1,3 billion population of India, live without access to sanitary toilet facilities, which make India the country in the world, with most people relieving themselves in nature. In 2014 the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, declared India to be free of open defecation, by installing 120 million toilets all over the country, by the end of 2019. But still today, big parts of the population do not have access to a functional toilet or clean drinking water.

Among other things this is also the case in the slum areas of Khaldhar and Bakkri Patti, where Gadens Børn has been doing social outreach work since 2017. Every area accomodate around 2000 people, all living close together along the outskirts of an approx. 600-meter-long road. They all share one single, very dirty and broken toilet – shielded only by bamboo and with direct outflow into the river, which as a result is rather polluted. Water, the locals use in their everyday life and is the main cause of the spread of infectious diseases.

Soon we will be able to offer the inhabitants of Khaldhar and Bakkri Patti access to sanitary toilet facilities, by which we can ensure better living conditions and reduce the pollution that causes so many of the diseases among the children and which prevents us from obtaining our goal of mission: Healthy street children, ready to invest in and fight for a bright and prosperous future - off the street.

Boarding School for 235 children in the making

In Gadens Børn we never stop dreaming. As our dream of having our own schools and orphanage now has come true, we want to unite the two and open our very own Boarding School. A Boarding School with the capacity for 100 boys, 100 girls and 35 disabled children to stay, live and attend school.

Through our social outreach work, we have vitnessed how neglected the disabled people are in Kolkata. We have met a lot of disabled children and parents, and none of them get the help and support they are entitled to from the state. It only includes a healthcare part, so the disabled children do not get any opportunity to attend school, or other kind of stimulation in their everyday life. Instead parents are forced to stay at home to take care of them, unable to work - and thus they remain in poverty.

With this Boarding School, we want to relieve the pressure on these parents and offer the support and attention they need to develop in a positive way and live healthy and productive lives.

Read more about the project here.

A Production School

In order to provide effective learning outcomes for all our children, we need to start offering alternative pathways to education, for those children who don’t benefit from our regular teaching program. We are therefore in the process of establishing a production school that will offer learning activities based on production and practical workshops.

Our experience has shown us that some of our most severely challenged students need special support to fully prosper and benefit from our regular teaching program. If these children keep failing, they will start losing their hope and motivation for continuing their education. Ultimately, they will drop out of school, resume dangerous habits and be put at risk of multiple types of harm on the streets. If we fail to retain these children, it will only limit their future opportunities, and they will lose their best shot at finding a sustainable pathway off the streets.

These students need special care and support to fully prosper and maintain their motivation to finish the education, that is so vital for their development. However, our experience tells us, that their motivation is usually driven by immediate gratification and measurable results. We need to accommodate such needs, in order to retain students, who are at risk of dropping out.

The academic practice of our production school will be built around learning activities in various workshops, based on practical work and problem-solving combined with instruction. Our production school will organize workshops, providing the children with more opportunities to try out different professions. Through these workshops they will get more opportunities to explore their skills and find out what motivates them. Finally the students can specialize in a craft or profession of their own choice. In addition, these workshops shall strengthen the childrens' personal and social competencies. We believe that academic progression and personal development mutually support each other. The aim of our production school is therefore to create stimulating learning experiences and bring these students a series of victories and successes. In addition, our production school will still offer teaching in general subjects, in order to prepare the students to commence a regular youth education program in the future.