Pavement children under shelter of NGO dream big

Updated on: Thursday, September 27, 2012

They are as young as 12 and 7, but they have dreams of being police officers or dancers. Their hard lives as the children of pavement dwellers in the metropolis has not detered their dreams.

Take the 7-year-old boy who grew up amidst hooch sellers and drug pushers at a railway siding who wants to be a police officer when he grows up so that he can one day get rid of the scum of society.

His 12-year-old sister wants to be a dancer and is taught Odissi by no less than Dona Ganguly at her school. The little girl now finds the crude language on the pavement laced with expletives shocking to her young ears.

She says she forcefully tells neighbours on the pavement that use rough language at the drop of a hat to mind their language.

"I will be an educated girl someday and a dancer like Dona Mam who teaches me," says Priyanka, among the handful of children from the pavement under Durgapur rail bridge at New Alipore that ngo M S Welfare Society works with to provide a better life.

" I try telling people I live with on the pavement that I have seen something of a better life too, which I will also introduce them to, when I grow up as an educated girl and a dancer with the help of these kind mams," says Priyanka, at the office of the ngo on the occasion of Iswarchandra Vidyasagar's 192nd birth anniversary when a walk was organized with them.

Her 7-year-old brother shyly says that he studies under the light of street lamps, something Iswarchandra did too.

He would like to be a crime-buster in uniform when he grows up and rid his neighbourhood of hooch and drugs.

"I want to study. I want to read story books. I want to spend more time with these mams who help me prepare my school lessons. I also want to be a police officer and punish those who have made our lives miserable," he says.

"We heard about Vidyasagar from the mams and now know how he changed our lives. We have been given study material by them," he says about the seven women who run the NGO.

The ngo now works with 25 children in the age group of 6 to 13, whose parents at one time were skeptical about the purpose of the women who promised to change the lives of their children.

Krishna Chatterjee and Mira Das, who are members of the NGO says "A few of them have been to juvenile homes for small offences and were getting hooked to crime when we took them under our wing in 2008."

For giving the children a better life, the members contribute themselves and also receive help from friends and neighbours.

"People wondered how long we could carry on, but we have been able to organize Vidyasagars birthday every year since then," says Chatterjee and Das.

"We also observe literacy day, forestry day with the children. They love to spend their time with us and prefer to stay with us as long as they can," says Doly Banerjee, who is also part of the NGO.

Pavement children under shelter of NGO dream big

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