Salaam Baalak Trust for India’s street children

Salaam Baalak Trust works with India’s street children to give them shelter, education, guidance and the right opportunities that will hopefully, lead them out of Delhi’s forgotten shadows into adulthood. Salaam Baalak Trust came into being in 1988, shortly after a Bollywood film “Salaam Bombay” gripped the nation. “Salaam Bombay” tells the story of India’s street children and the standards within which they live due to the confines of India’s child laboring. The founders, Praveen Nair and Sanjoy Roy decided to create this organization with the film as its namesake.

Salaam Baalak Trust (SBT) offers education, shelter, medical services, vocational training and employment education to ages between 5 and 18.  SBT primarily seeks to mainstream this undervalued group in society to become aware of their value and capabilities. The results speak for themselves. SBT’s website is abound with heart-warming stories of children who ran away from home, came to Delhi on the train, and tried to make a better life. Salaam Baalak Trust offers the support and ideational foundation for these children to find companionship in education, as well as freedom in the possibilities that education offers.  In the past 24 years SBT has helped a total of 4,527 children off the streets of Delhi. Yet they are still learning, adapting and having to overcome difficulties in the business.

SBT is challenged by the mobile nature of the target group. Providing these children with long-term assistance is restricted by the time-lengths that these children do and can stay in a particular place. SBT seeks to improve awareness about the program and attract more stakeholders that can improve its childcare services. Salaam Baalak Trust works towards better quality before quantity, which so naturally grows given the huge number of children of the kind. The organization intends to grow in order to expand vocational training programs. Aside from counseling, and creation of job opportunities, SBT relies on volunteers who mostly arrive from the UK to mentor and provide these children with more open-minded hope towards the future and what they are truly capable of achieving.

For more information about SBT, contact Ms. Praveen Nair, Chairperson Add- 2nd Floor, DDA Community Center, Chandiwali Gali, Paharganj, New Delhi-55, Mob- 9818257109, E-mail-pnair1931@gmail.com.

 

dsc_0374 Iliana Foutsitzis is a recent graduate of Northeastern University’s Political Science curriculum. Before embarking on a law degree Iliana is spending a gap year in New Delhi, India interning with the Niiti Consulting team.

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