Supporting Vulnerable Women and Children in Kolkata, India

Murshida, resident of Topsia canalside squatter camp is 18 years old. She has just completed her final school exams. Her father is a tuktuk driver who earns about £2.50 (Rs200) a day.  Most girls in this community marry at 12 or 13 years old but Murshida and Tiljala SHED's staff persuaded her parents to let her continue her education.  Murshida has attended Tiljala SHED's classes since she was small and aspires now to become a teacher. She shows every sign of accomplishing her ambition. So how does it worK? How does a child born in a shelter beside a railway line in Kolkata escape the cycle of poverty?   With illiterate parents, mother a rag picker, father a rickshaw wallah and often too drunk to work, both repeating the cycle of 2 or 3 generations since the family escaped starvation as landless rural poor by moving to the big city for a better life?   How can an anxious mother with 6 or 8 mouths to feed every day even think beyond the immediate daily i...

Education is one of the most effective agents of change in society. When a child is able to go to school today, he or she sets off a cycle of positive change. But, thousands of children in India lack access to education and can’t even write their own names. (CRY India) Rehan wants to be a software engineer This is Rehan. He is 14 years old and lives with his parents in a makeshift shelter in the Topsia Canalside Squatter Camp, a narrow strip of land with huge open sewers running down either side.  There is no proper sanitation, no toilets and the 2 drinking water taps (for 710 families) operate for just a few hours a day.  Many of the residents here are rag pickers but all work in the informal economy: rickshaw drivers, fruit sellers, daily labourers.  Illiteracy, child marriage, child labour, domestic abuse, alcoholism and substance abuse are rife. Rehan’s father is a rickshaw driver earning Rs3000 – 4000 (£33 - £44) per month. His mother is a housewife. Rehan’...