CRY will be facilitating education for underprivileged children through intervention based projects.

PROJECT: Social Action for Literacy and Health (SALAH) This project is working with slum dwellers across 10 slums in the Bhandup district of Central Mumbai. The project seeks to address issues like illiteracy, child labour, lack of basic amenities, addictions among even young children and child marriage. The action plan includes providing birth certificates which would be required for enrollment into government schools, surveying and enrolling all eligible children in balwadis or support classes, providing ration cards to give families access to government welfare schemes and creating awareness within the community about child marriage. Support classes and balwadis operate in these areas and all eligible children will be enrolled.

Number of children impacted : 1,300


PROJECT: NIRMAN This project works with children in three resettlement colonies in South-West Delhi. There are two groups of children that are targeted – children of workers from the unorganized sector, many of whom do not go to school and children engaged in labour. The main problem in these areas are the insufficient number of schools. The schools that are present also lack the basic facilities like toilets and drinking water. Many children stay at home to look after younger siblings while the parents are at work due to the lack of crèches or balwadis. Affordability of education is yet another issue which prevents children from going to school. Malnourishment and the lack of immunizations are some of the other key issues faced by children in these slums. Registration of Construction Workers with the Welfare Board to get scholarships for their children, Mobilizing the community to enroll their children into schools, quarterly follow ups to ensure benefits – are some of the areas this project works in, in order to ensure child rights Provisions are also being made to provide registration of births, health check ups and proper sanitation.

Number of children impacted: 1,570


PROJECT 3: JANVANI This project works with 15 slums in the Shamirpet, Rangareddy district in Hyderabad. Out of these 12 slums do not have any educational facilities. The nearby educational facilities that are present do not have basic amenities and sometimes do not even have a proper compound. They lack basic facilities like toilets and drinking water, the former being a huge problem, especially for girls and lady teachers. The schools are also severely understaffed thereby impacting teacher- student ratio and therefore lack of quality education. Janvani focus includes identifying and enrolling children into schools, improving infrastructure of the two government schools in the area, monitoring of ICDS centers and formation and regular follow ups with youth and children’s groups.

Number of children impacted: 8,343


PROJECT 4: Society for Occupational environment and social security (SOHES) This project works with 80 coastal hamlets in Thriuvellore, Kancheepuram and Villupuram districts in Tamil Nadu. They mainly work with the children among the fishing community. SOHES has first started work in these parts after the Tsunami and thereafter, along with CRY has taken up a more long term based approach. Only about 50% of the children in these areas attend school but the poor quality of government schools induces parents to try and send their children to private schools which are significantly more expensive and rather far away. Therefore even though enrollments in the primary level are still high, there are a huge number of dropouts in the middle and secondary levels. Moreover girls do not attend school because of the responsibility of younger siblings when the mother goes out to work. The lack of proper and nutritious food at the government maintained anganwadis give rise to deficiencies in the children’s physical and mental health. As part of the action plan, there will be 100% retention of the enrolled children. There will also be enrollment into schools for identified child labourers. Sensitizing the community at various levels, studying the impact of the Coastal Management Bill on women and children, setting up new elementary schools and monitoring functions of the PHCs in the areas are some of the other points.

Number of children impacted: 400 directly, a few thousand indirectly.


PROJECT 5: DOOARS JAGRON This project works directly with 20 tea gardens in the Jalpaiguri district. They further have advocate for child rights in 14 other tea gardens. There is a high number of school dropouts in this region. Child labour and lack of nutritious food leading to hampered physical and mental development are other barriers to education. Parents not getting regular wages and lack of proper crèches and health facilities further prevent the children from going to school. The action plan targets identifying and bringing dropouts back to school, activation and monitoring of primary schools, interactive sessions with youth conventions to generate awareness, studies on child labour and reactivation of ICDS centers.

Number of children impacted: 3120 directly. 6000+ through advocacy program.

PROJECT 6: IYWS – Institute for Youth and Social Welare IYSW was initiated with the basic aim of working with the students and the youth from the slums in Nagpur. IYSW looks at the youth and children as initiators of change in the society and hence plans to work with them. In the first three years, the support from CRY has helped the organization in building a committed team, establishing a strong presence in the community and initiating processes to enable the communities to understand rights of their children.

Number of children impacted: 1,691


PROJECT 7: Samitra Mitra Mandal (SMM) SMM registered in early 90’s and has been working on the most disadvantaged children & adults in the slums of Mumbai. The group has been continuously working on ensuring children’s right to education and has been instrumental in achieving 100% enrollment in many slum areas in the past.

Number of children impacted: 2,350

Save the Children will address the care and protection needs of street and slum children in New Delhi and Kolkata by setting up child friendly spaces and providing education. The NGO will work with children of pre-school age at ICDS centres through our early years programme. For older children between 15-18 years of age and will provide life skills training and link them to vocational training opportunities.

Save the Children will implement early childhood care and education in the Okhla/Govindpuri slums of Delhi, working with 400 children. The NGO will mobilise parents around health and hygiene and the importance of early childhood care and education, training Anganwadi workers, sensitising 400 mothers and linking their families living in slum areas with social protection and food security schemes.

Save the Children will work with 700 children living on the streets, 300 children in Northern Kolkata and 400 children around Nehru Place in Delhi, providing them safe and child-friendly places through Facilitation Centres that will run approximately 6-8 hours a day, and link with shelter homes operated by Government and non-Government agencies as “night safe shelter” for street children.

The NGO will facilitate access to bridge courses for children who have missed out on education and health services. The NGO will facilitate enrolment in formal schools, provide training in life skills (e.g. emotional and physical self-control, sexual health, protective measures from abuse, self-esteem). The NGO will also establish links with vocational institutions, for example, training children to lead heritage walks as Delhi and Kolkata are tourist cities. While we will focus on formal education for street children aged between 6-14, the market-oriented vocational links will focus on the 14-18 age group.

For children enrolling into formal schools, the NGO will connect them with students at local private schools to mentor and tutor these children with their homework. Save The Children will train teachers in a total of 16 schools in Delhi (6) and Kolkata (10) on inclusive teaching methods so that street children enrolled in these schools will not drop out. Through this programme, Aviva and Save the Children will indirectly positively impact the lives of 6,400 childre

For 17 year old Rohit Raju education came to an abrupt halt when he had to leave school in the ninth standard to take care of medical expenses for an ailing father. By the time Rohit was in a position to get back to school, he had already missed a substantial amount of time at school and not knowing what he could do to bridge that gap, he continued with his job at the printing press even though the wages he was being paid far from adequate.

When Rohit first came into contact with the IYWS workers he had already missed two years at school and was stuck in a low paying job with no way out. The field staff from IYWS had regular meetings with Rohit and his parents and were eventually able to convince them to send Rohit to night school where he would be able to make up for the lost years.

Today Rohit is fast catching up and is also an active participant in activities and programs organized by the Bal Aadikar Bhavan which is the children’s collective in his area. With Aviva’s support IYWS has turned Rohit’s life around and continues to bring about such changes in many more children.

Six year old Neha grew up in construction sites playing amongst the cement dust and construction materials. Both her parents are daily wage earners on building sites, working upto 12 hours a day. Their home is in a resettlement colony at Sector-15 A, Dwarka which is predominantly comprised of construction workers and their families.

When she was younger Neha would accompany her parents to the construction site. Even though her parents were aware of the constant danger of the accident prone construction site – they did not have any alternatives. The situation changed when Neha’s grandmother came to Delhi and started living with them. However sending their daughter to school was something her parents still did not consider.

Very soon there was an addition to the family when younger sister Tanya was born. Neha was very happy to have a lovely sister but since her mother could not afford maternity leave, she returned to work putting Neha in charge of her infant sibling.

In the same colony where Neha lives – project Nirmana has been working for a while with the community and specifically for the children of construction workers. It has organized and empowered the community to avail social security for construction workers and their children. Nirmana has also helped in making the construction workers aware of the provision for monthly scholarships for children of construction workers under 'The Building and Other Construction Workers Act, 1996’. One of the organization's basic work is to register construction workers under the Act.