Street Moms and Kids

We work on a busy street in the city of Mysore in South India, where most of the women and kids have lived here for years. For two families, three generations of females have lived on the street for too many years. Some of the women are used for prostitution, with husbands and teenage boys as pimps. A few collect discarded vegetables from the market to sell on the roadside. Many destitute elderly men and women also live here, as their families have discarded them.

One woman, possibly with HIV, has many scars on her forearms from cutting herself to try to bleed out the disease. On a good day, the average income for a street person is around US$1.00.

Some who work on the street live in shacks in nearby villages. They come to work on the street for four or five days. Their little ones come along and hang out on the street instead of going to school. Bus fare is too expensive for them to go home every night, or they spend their earnings drinking while their kids sleep on the street.

It is difficult to ascertain a street boy's true reason for being on the street, as he may have run away from a home situation too horrifying to talk about, preferring to roam the streets than getting beaten. The boys try not to carry too much money or belongings with them, because "the less I have, the less there is for someone to take from me." Many, unfortunately, turn to sniffing glue.

Our Street People Program, on the streets of Mysore, provides on-the-spot assistance for women and children who live on the street.

Today, our program helps in the following ways:

• placement for the kids into shelters and educational facilities
• medicines and doctor visits for basic and serious illnesses
• birth control assistance
• housing for qualified families
• daily vitamins and a breakfast snack
• sweaters and blankets for chilly evenings
• informal tutoring on the alphabet and numbers
• field trips to interesting local sites

Click here for a few photos from our program...

Many of our former street kids now live at Karunya Mane, our shelter. These kids no longer yearn for their old lives on the streets and are very happy and healthy as they finally get to enjoy their childhood. We also helped their moms find housing, and they no longer have to sleep on the sidewalk where really bad things happen at night.

We find new destitute men, women, and kids often, as our moms refer them to us for medical assistance or for help in admitting their kids into decent schools. We help many street women with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, and help them find proper counseling and medical attention. Consistency has allowed us to slowly gain their trust. And some of the moms now work earnestly with us to help their fellow women in need.

With your support, we can expand our Street People Program to provide street kids and women with a city-based community center. The community center would provide:

• storage for personal belongings
• shelter and safety at night
• a daily meal
• water for laundry and bathing
• tutoring and activities for kids not in school
• job training and employment opportunities