ABOUT STREET CHILDREN:
At present we have 30 girls and 20 boys both sex have separate home named after Kiruba Javouhey Home for girls and Kiruba Savio Home for boys.
Street children:
Are the children of pavement dwellers, beggars children, gypsy's children and children who are ran away from home and accommodated by the pavement dwellers.
Pavement dwellers are people migrated from the neighboring villages and neighboring town of Pondicherry for the due to poverty and to find some odd job for their lively hood. Since their economical condition is below the marginal level they are not able to rend a house and they began to live in the pavement of Pondicherry.
Housing condition Above their heads only the sky, below their feet the earth, they roam and sleep any where. Some time they sleep with the company of dogs and cows in the streets.
Family conditions:
Partners in the family are not united by the marriage; just they live together so they frequently change their partners for flimsy reasons.Most of them are addict to alcohol or kanja and quarrel among themselves. Hence children become unwanted, uncared, rejected and neglected. so they go for begging , steeling , join with their pear groups and indulge themselves in delinquent behavior like Smoking taking kanja and alcohol ,Steeling, fighting etc.
Health Conditions:
They live in the pavement near the drainage , they use same place for cooking sleeping and also as toilet .They are exposed to heat sun heavy cold and rain pollution and dust noice etc , Most of the children have lungs problem and heavy cold, and untreated wounds and scabies. Normally they have very bad smell in the body. Their skin will be rough due to mosquitoes bite; also sleeping with stray dogs they will have peculiar type of skin infection which we find hard to cure.. Their hair will be rough and reddish, skin like a things peeling from their head. Added to this as soon as they come they get fever and diarrhea. It takes nearly three years to cure all these completely.
Economical status:
Rickshaw pulling, Trycycling loading and unloading are their main source of income for the most of the street dwellers of Pondicherry. The children earn their daily living by rag-picking selling black tickets in the cinema theater, steeling things in the market place etc.
Educational Status:
Though they reside under the shadow of school compound wall, they never entered inside the campus, not even out of curiosity. The parents also never take interest to admit them in the schools. And some are admitted in the schools by the generous hearted people but they find it hard to follow systematic way of life. There fore they drop from the school. And by their parents few are admitted in the school which is not conducive for studies, they also drop from the school lack of attention from the teacher.
Health Conditions:
Most of the children come with lungs problem and heavy cold, and untreated wounds and scabies. Normally they have very bad smell in the body. Their skin will be rough due to mosquitoes bite; also sleeping with stray dogs they will have one type of skin problem. Their hair will be rough and reddish, skin like a things peeling from their head. Added to this as soon as they come they get fever and diarrhea. It takes two years to cure all these completely.
Problems:
Since the children are deserted by their parents and expose to all evils of the society, drug addicts, the unwanted and delinquent children are increasing rapidly. The youth boys and girls are living illegal married life in the streets. Therefore broken families- unsteady families are becoming more common. Street prostitution is growing more and more. Children who ran away from homes even near by towns and villages are accommodated by these families for economical benefit and introduce them to sexual abuses, drugs and cinema. Kanja( intoxicating materiel) and other drugs are sold by these families in the street. There are families who lend money for Kanthu vatti creates lots of problems. There are elders who come away from their villages to earn money through begging and settle as pavement dwellers. There are youth (lovers) who run away from their native places and settle as rickshaw pullers in the street. The standard of their lives is below normal.
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