Day 7. Salaam Baalak Trust

There is something special about children. No matter how difficult their lives are, their eyes shine with curiosity and they are always ready to offer a sincere smile.

Today we met with Salaam Baalak Trust, an organization that strives to protect and aid children that live and work on the streets to reach their full potential.

Iqbal, who as a child lived and worked on the streets, was our guide for the day. He walked us through the backstreets of Delhi and the railroads providing us an insight of what children have to go through when living on the streets. Most children run away from home due to abuse or poverty, while the rest get abandoned by their parents or they simply cannot find their way back home and are left wondering alone. Iqbal told us there are close to 120 new kids on the streets everyday. That’s 840 kids every week.

Salaam Baalak has an office, or checkpoint, by the railway where kids can get medical attention and two meals until 2:30pm, but must return to the streets to spend the night. Also they have a shelter where kids can stay 24 hours, providing them with a sense of security and family as well as providing basic education. For kids to stay at this shelter they have to commit to stay for a minimum of 3 months- which most kids do not accept and end up back in the streets. Fortunately, Salaam Baalak personnel like Iqbal, are using their testimonies to reach out to these kids so they can take advantage of the much needed services offered by this organization.

We also learned that most boys start working as rag-pickers selling plastic bottles and other recyclable items for a few rupees. With this money kids play video games and buy drugs to help them forget about hunger and any physical pain they may endure. Girls do not last long on the streets. As soon as they set foot on the train platform, brokers are waiting to snatch them and sell them into prostitution- sometimes for a few rupees, other times in exchange for a couple of bottles of alcohol. I keep on picturing these girls being taken away; over and over again, trying to figure out a way to stop the vicious cycle.

Lots of thinking to be done…

Day 10: Last Day of Class

From simply reading my blog I hope that it is apparent that this experience was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity. I got to not only expand my interest in social entrepreneurship but I got to see it first hand in the country of India along with the importance and work of various NGOs. The people I met along the way have changed my life; the images I saw will forever be engraved in my memory. I hate to sound cliché, but this trip was everything I thought it’d be and more. Seeing the class reading come alive before us just proves that social entrepreneurship is real and is happening around is. It is not a fad, because there will always be people out there that have the drive and passion to make a social change. What we must work on is to have all of the skills needed including how to write a business plan, proper marketing skills, how to measure impact, knowing the target community, etc. One with out the other is ground for failure. Know the problem, know your method on fixing the problem, and if a solution is already out there (even if it’s only 90% solving the problem) go work for THAT organization don’t try and form a whole new idea, learn how to team together with other NGOs or social entrepreneurs. Well class may be over but I will be sure to keep in touch with the graduate students I have met and worked with on this trip along with Dr. Vyas and Dr. Parrish because I have learned SO much from them in these short six weeks.

Day 9: A Tour of a Runaway by a Runaway

On our last day of site visits we visited Salaam Baalak Trust. As we got out of our rickshaws we were greeted by two young men, in their mid-twenties, wearing matching shirts; they introduced themselves and told us they’d be our tour guides for the day. Runaway children are not an uncommon occurrence among the streets of India. Every day a new child goes missing. Wait by a railroad track and you will see a child jumping on or off in hopes to find a new life. The streets of India are filled with runaways. They enter a dangerous lifestyle in hopes to escape. Some are running from alcoholic parents, some are seeking a better education, and some are hoping to be the next Bollywood star. Whatever the reason may be, these children have entered India’s street life and survival does not come easy. They turn to pickpocketing and begging. The girls are not safe; many of them turn to prostitution in which they must meet with at least 25 clients a day. For each client a girl receives 100 rupees a day, but after 50 goes to her boss, another 50 to her boss’s boss, and another 50 to pay for her living situation, she is then left with a mere 50 rupees ($1.10 USD) for something she is forced into. In order to mentally escape both girls and boys become addicted to drugs. Just listening to the stories can bring tears to one’s eyes. We walked through the slum and learned about homes and services that Salaam Baalak Trust provides to runaway children. We got the chance to meet with a classroom of boys that were excited to meet us, take pictures, and show off their dancing and singing talents. The older ones that sat against the wall in the back seemed a bit embarrassed, the younger ones however, seemed content, some even happy. I loved talking with them, maybe because they reminded me of my brother when he was younger. They just wanted someone to hang out with, talk to and play with. Unlike the girls we had met earlier on our trip they were not concerned about our physical attributes like our hair and skin tone, instead they wanted to know our interests and the kind of music we listen to. We got to hang out with them for quite awhile and afterwards, our tour guide took us to the SBT office to explain his story and how he got to where he is today. He explained that when he was younger he witnessed his father kill his mother, and that his father use to abuse him. As he wished to escape this lifestyle the only thing he could think to do was to runaway. And so he did. He arrived at a SBT home, listened to his teachers, and would always spend his money on videogames; or so he told us. It was inspiring to hear his story or overcoming hardships especially in regards to the abuse he received from his father. It’s stories like these that prove that SBT is a smart and well thought out organization. Our tour-guide went from being a runaway to having a well paying job and being a role model to the Indian youth. SBT empowers their children and the target community of runaways. This element is something that I believe to be necessary in every social entrepreneur endeavor. Empower and teach the target community so that once you’re gone, the business can remain sustainable with it in their hands.

Questions on Poverty

My friend Eric asked me: How has seeing extreme poverty changed you?

I could probably say something unlike anything you have ever seen before or could possibly imagine, but there’s more to it. For each person on the trip it was different, and at each slum we visited it was also different. It’s heart breaking, there’s a part of you that just wants to cry out for the people in front of you but there’s this other side thanking God that you’re privileged enough to not have to live this lifestyle. The emotions you feel vary but the reality of the situation remains the same. Seeing extreme poverty to me was eye opening to put into one word. It’s not something you can just read in a textbook and simply understand, you experience it when walking the grounds of filth and trash, you experience it when speaking to the 10 year old boy that has never seen anything outside of the slums of Dharavi, and you experience it

It has changed me to be more humble. You leave not wanting to go out to a nice restaurant or complain about the A/C not working because there in front of you were children and families struggling for basic needs! And when I say struggling I mean actually having to pick through trash and sleeping in shanties or outside no matter what the weather maybe. And some of you reading this may say well there are ghettos in America also that you should go visit, however it is not the same I’d argue that it doesn’t even compare!

And I’ll leave you with this, something I thought about after reviewing my pictures from Dharavi: You can take as many pictures as you want in the slums but the sight is still the same; the pain and poverty still shows through the eyes of the people living here. This is not a site for tourism but a sight to make you realize, realize the truth of the world that for some, has been hidden for far too long.