Save 1000s of Indian Children exposed to COVID

COVID19 has changed the way we work and the approaches our teams in East Africa can take – but it won’t stop us supporting the children that need us now more than ever. One of them is nine-year-old Athuman who we rescued from living on Mwanza’s streets.

Like many young children, Athuman sometimes wet the bed. But his family did not deal with the issue well and his mother was angry and frustrated with him, punishing him brutally every time it happened. He said: “I used to wet the bed every night. As such, my mother used to beat me viciously every morning as punishment.” Athuman still has several scars from the violence inflicted on him by his mother. The attacks actually made Athumn’s bedwetting worse as well as leaving him depressed, anxious and distraught. Eventually when he couldn’t take any more he ran away from home, choosing instead to live on the harsh city streets.

This new lifestyle was even harder for the little boy. He never had enough food to eat and struggled to find safe places to sleep, often ending up in trenches in the dirt. One night he was asleep when a man found him and viciously raped him again and again. He explained how the horrific abuse left him terrified as well as physically injured. It was at this point that our teams met Athuman and started trying to help him. We made sure he got the medical help he needed as well as counselling and psychological support to try and recover from the trauma he had been through. With support from our legal teams we have worked with the police to bring his abuser to justice and the case is now going to court. In the meantime we have helped Athuman find a safe, secure place to call home for the first time in his life.

Unsurprisingly, Athuman was wary of being reunited with his violent mother, but we managed to track down grandparents who lived 130km away but clearly loved and cared for the boy. We were able to settle Athuman in their home and they are happily looking after their grandson, who in turn is delighted to be living with them.

We have been following up regularly to make sure they are all okay but when COVID19 hit Tanzania we were forced to reduce our operations and restrict the travelling of our teams. We do not want Athuman and his family to feel abandoned, and know they will be scared and anxious so need our support more than ever. So we have provided them with a mobile phone and charger so that they can contact us or other services they need during these difficult times. We will be there for them for as long as they need us – even if we have to reach them by phone rather than in person – as no one should face this terrifying pandemic alone.

Links:

• Railway Children India short film

The nationwide lockdown across India is having a devastating impact on the country’s most vulnerable people – many of whom are the children and families we work with. Our teams have been contacting and supporting as many of them as possible and have been able to offer emergency help already. One family, we met through 13-year-old Hakkim who left home to find work so he could bring some money in to the home and help provide for his family. He had been found and settled in to one of the Government run children’s homes while we worked to reunite him with his family and found out more about their situation.

Hakkim was one of four and his father worked hard in the construction industry to support his wife and children. But he never quite made ends meet, and often resorted to borrowing money to pay for rent and food. Gradually the debts grew out of control and unable to repay them Hakkim’s father committed suicide when he was just eight years old. The family struggled to deal with this trauma, although his mother went out to work daily, so that Hakkim could carry on going to school. One of his older brothers left home after an argument and another brother worked hard as a salesman – but when his mother was suddenly taken ill and unable to work, Hakkim felt he had no choice but to find work himself. He headed to the city and this is when we spotted him at the station and intervened. We made sure he was safe and after his stay in the care home and multiple family visits, we reunited Hakkim with his family on February 22^nd.

 He went back to school and was working hard but within weeks the coronavirus pandemic hit India and we knew this already fragile family would be suffering.

 Our team contacted them urgently and found that Hakkim’s brother had already lost his job leaving the family with no income and no food. Any savings they had had already been spent on the mother’s medical treatment and at the point we contacted them they were unable to pay the rent and desperately hungry. Hakkim’s mother said: “My eldest son was earning our only income and without that we are not able to buy food, let alone soap or masks so that we can make some effort to survive this virus.”

We immediately contacted local authorities to ask for emergency passes that would allow our teams to travel to the family and help them and as soon as these were granted we rushed to the home and gave them cooked food to eat straight away as well as enough rice, flour, sugar, oil and soap to last for the next four weeks days.

 Hakkim’s mother said: “We were suffering with no food, locked down in our house and had nothing – now the RCI team has found us something to eat and helped by showing us how to keep safe from the deadly virus.”

 The same day, our team also reached another four children’s families that we knew would be in similar desperate need and provided them the same emergency food pack of rice, flour, cooking oil and soap.   There are thousands of families like Hakkim’s who need our help in this way during this unprecedented crisis and we are working round the clock to reach them. We are working with the authorities, social service providers and partners and are committed to ensuring that no child and their family remains hungry through this difficult time.