Anurag Jain's Blog on Bangalore Events, Travel, IIM Bangalore, IIM, IIMB, Management

Saturday, May 08, 2004

Posted 6:33 PM by Anurag

Friends of CRY (FoC)

I have been volunteering for CRY's pinwheel campaign for last 1 month or so. The campaign went down pretty well with the people. The only problem is that we dont have many students in campus currently (I did 50 odd pinwheels with the help of a friend of mine who did almost half of them at her corporate). Also, got into debate with one student because his point of view was that govt. shouldn't be present in the social sector at all!

Then last Saturday, Kamna Sharpe from CRY, Mayank and 10+ other vounteers (FoC) had come to the campus and we discussed the way forward. In that meeting, another pinwheel volunteer (Nishant) too had reservations about touching the government, because in his experience of campaign whenever he told people that we'd send letters to poiliticians, people became indifferent. The apparent reason being that they just dont trust govt. anymore. His proposal/idea was that CRY shouldn't touch anything that has anything to do with the government because it sort of undermines CRY's cerdibility!

Anyways, apart from these debates we discussed the field-level initiatives of FoC. One such is helping the children in QIC(Quality Institutional Care) . QIC is about government-run residential schools for juvenile children. These institutes are meant for children who are either in conflict of the law, or they dont have anywhere to go. I myself decided to go to the QIC (Quality Institutional Care) this weekend with the conviction that I would be able to do something useful for the QIC children.

So, today, with Mayank, I went to the Juvenile Home for Boys run by the Karnataka Government (Child Welfare Committee). Its nestled between Kidwai Institute of Oncology and NIMHANS. As expected, I had problems in communicating with the kids. Still I could find some Hindi-speaking little kids, who talked for themselves and translated for others. I met four kids in particular:

1) Shekh Hidayat (age: approx: 9yrs): After his dad's second marriage, he was living with his uncle until the time his uncle threw him out of house for losing a pair of clothes. Shekh worked with mechanics at auto garages for a while before boarding a train to Chennai. At Chennai he was intercepted by the police and taken to the juvenile hostel there. Later, he was shifted to the juvenile hostel at Raipur (TamilNadu border) before finally being sent to Bangalore juvenile home. He wants to goto his uncle's place for upcoming Moharram festival because he's very religious and wants to lift/carry the Tazia. He has no interest in studying at the Juvenile Home School (QIC). Full of world-wisdom (which was quite a surprise for me) for his little age , he liked Raipur Juveline Home but he does not want to stay in Bangalore Juvenile Home because of 'rowdyism' (in his own words). The bigger guys bully them. Someone in fact abused him and he said: "I just listened and cried".

2) Ayyub (Age: approx 5 yrs): He also is from Bangalore and has some address on his memory. Tomorrow, Mayank will be taking Shekh and Ayyub to the addresses they are mouthing and try to restore them to their kith and kin.

3) Edwin (Age: approx 7 yrs): A Christian from KGF, he remembers his full address. From what little I could understand, it went something like like: Champion (It has to be the mine name which I saw when I went to KGF last), Anna Theatre, Tanning Road. He knows very little Hindi and is very jovial.

4) Srinath (Age: approx 6 yrs): He is from Mumbai and speaks Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi! His uncle lives near Bangalore and he's looking forward to a visit to uncle's home.

I have decided that talking to kids is fine but what I really wanna do is to do something tangible for them. And for the same reasons, I am planning to interact more with the older guys (14-18 yrs). I have identified following areas where I can help them:
1) Driving Lessons
2) Computers/Internet
3) English coaching
4) General Career Counseling.

Me and Mayank have decided to take it forward from next week onwards. Lets see how it goes.