The most amazing part of working with Indian children in the past 2 months was that regardless of how difficult their lives are, children everywhere love the same things. What all these children want at the end of the day is to enjoy their childhood and they should be able to freely to do so. Children like to dream, climb trees, pose in front of a car, dance, ride a bike, talk during class, listen to music, smile, be shy, and to run.
Children usually accompany their parents when they move and have therefore to drop out school. They end up working in the factories with their parents. As government schools in a different state do not accept children’s enrollment in the middle of school year, their only chance of getting education is attending Bridge courses, which are provided to try to mainstream them into formal education in the following year.
The problem is: in the following year their parents will move again; and again they will drop school and start working in the brick kiln factories. The challenge is how to break this cycle.
To learn more about organisations working here, visit Rajadighi Community Health Service Society and Save the Children India.
This photography project was commissioned by Save the Children.
Biri is a thin cigarette filled with tobacco flake and wrapped in a tendu leaf. In Murshidabad district, West Bengal, almost every child is involved in the biri industry. Most of them work at home rolling biris for hours a day. Even children attending school roll biris before and after class to provide income for their families. In almost any house you enter there will be children and women rolling biris. Biri is an engrained part of the lives of this mostly (90%) Muslin community.
After rolled, biris are sent to factories for roasting and packaging. This is a highly profitable business mostly because of the cheap and illegal labour it makes use of.
To learn more about organisations working here, visit Child in Need Institute and Save the Children India.
This photography project was commissioned by Save the Children.
Kolkata’s 25 ha dump is literally in the middle of the city. Near its entrance is a shopping mall, an international school and a park.
Surrounding this mountain of more than 30 meters of height thousands of people strive to live. Their livelihoods depend completely on the damp: they collect rag, or they work in the fisheries and plantations around it.
Corporal punishment by teachers, domestic violence, discrimination and child labour – mostly rag picking and domestic work – are common here. Even though many children are going to school, their future is uncertain. Many end up leaving school due to economic difficulties in the family. And those who manage to progress in their studies are disadvantaged vis a vis other children since the quality of government education is poor and Indian society continues to be segregated one.
In this district government institutions are almost absent. On the one hand, the government makes a blind eye to adults and children working in the dumping ground and it prohibits any type of photo documentary inside the walls of the dump to avoid putting its negligence on the spotlight of media. On the other hand, government’s presence is only felt before elections when promises are made, though hardly ever delivered.
To learn more about organisations working here, visit Development Action Society and Save the Children India. This photography project was commissioned by Save the Children.
