6000 Street Children in Nepal: Give Them a Home

As usual, the last few months have been really really busy. Every time we assist one child, we find out about more children from the same communities in terrible situations that need support urgently. 

Our teams from Birgunj and Rautahat have worked brilliantly together to find a solution for a family that we have been trying to assist for over a year. The dad was in prison until quite recently, and the mum was begging together with their 7 children outside of a hospital. The family of the dad did not allow the wife to work due to the husband being from a higher caste so she was forced to beg and sleep on the streets. The mum and the children were in and out of our Child Helpline as the family of the husband did not allow them to stay with us either. All the children were malnourished and none of them attended school. After a long time of trying, when the dad got released from prison, we provided the family with a microloan to set up a small food cart and pay for their first months of rent in a small house in Rautahat. The children have joined our classes over there and we are getting them ready to join regular school. It is still early days but they are now receiving a relatively good income from their food cart and are able to afford food and basic supplies for the children to attend school. We are still working with the family on a number of issues but it is such a great progress!

Due to the difficult nature of the cases we are coming across, we decided to expand the Birgunj Child Helpline team and now have an additional Outreach Officer and an additional Social Worker. This way we are able to focus on the street children in Birgunj and cases of children in emergency situations in other parts of the Province. Similarly to our project in Janakpur that assists girls who have been victims of gender based violence, we started now to work with Female Community Health Volunteers who inform us of any urgent cases in villages. 

In the meantime, the children who are staying at our Child Helpline and those who come for day time classes are having so much fun and are learning so much. We are very proud of the team on the ground as they have managed to inspire so many children through fun, interactive classes and activities. There is always music, dancing, laughter - and that's how it should be. All our children deserve to have a proper childhood. 

Thank you so much for all the support. We will have some exciting news to announce shortly - so please keep an eye out on our website and social media. We will also update you on everything in the next report!