For sometime now I have been observing.... ?
Children on streets .... in Mumbai as you travel around you see lot of children on streets, from 6 yrs onwards, fending for themselves sometimes cleaning the trains, begging on signals, selling articles in trains or just wandering around on streets. Who are these children, did they just drop from sky, where are their parents or relatives, why are the children abandoned or struggling on their own ?
Just last month few volunteers came to collect donations representing a NGO, they said the money would go for rehabilitating the street kids, teaching them candle making, paper bags or some non-hazardous occupation. As they need to fend for themselves or their family who depends on their income.
Is it really rehabilitation ? are children below 14 yrs suppose to support or fend for themselves financially, Does rehabilitating mean working in non-hazardous occupation? Do we expect the same from children of well to-do families.
Who is to blame, the parents who don't hesitate giving birth to number of kids while they cannot have 2 full meals, and look forward to the child as means of financial support, or the people who don't hesitate donating money to these kids directly or indirectly as help.
Today there are equal number of people living on streets as in the buildings around. Mumbai is now a mini India where the trains, buses, markets, malls, roads, footpaths are overcrowded by sea of people.
how the city runs is a miracle, yes, people survive here, but at whose cost.... "a childhood lost" Who is to be blamed ??
Isn't rehabilitation giving children a safe and sound environment, where they play, study and enjoy life without worrying.
