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Side by Side with Street Children in Delhi: Profile of the Salaam Balaak Trust

By Jenny Williams  |  Location: India  |  category: Sustainability  |  04/10/07

"For two hours, Indians and tourists both are invited to challenge their assumptions and come face-to-face with the children they so often brush aside. "

For travelers and locals alike, the filthy, tugging hands of Delhi’s street children are more often than not ignored. Their ragged clothes and scrawny frames fade easily among the hustle of Pahar Ganj’s Main Bazaar and the honking outside the Red Fort. As far as the crowds are concerned, the lives of street kids—though pitiable—are worth less than a second glance.

The Salaam Baalak Trust begs to differ.

Since 1988, the Trust—whose name means “salute the child”—has been taking children off the street and helping them rediscover what it means to have a future. The first year of operation had three staff members and twenty-five children. Nearly two decades later, staff numbers have grown to 90, and in 2006 alone the Trust saw 3,350 children through their system.

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At six contact points around the city, the Trust gathers kids in need of assistance; there, the children can enter into the Trust’s many programs designed for education and future-building. The Trust’s first priority is always to help runaways return to their families. But if such a thing is not viable, the Trust’s services—education, health and nutrition, skill building, theater, and recreation—are well-equipped to assist children in figuring out the next steps.

One of the Trust’s newest ventures—just nine months old—is a walking tour of the New Delhi railway station and its immediate environs, called the City Walk. The tour, which happens several times each week (whenever there are interested parties), aims to improve understanding about the lives of street children by bringing people into their world. For two hours, Indians and tourists both are invited to challenge their assumptions and come face-to-face with the children they so often brush aside.

“Most of all, we want to raise awareness,” says Shekhar, one of the Trust’s guides who—like the other tour leaders—experienced the life of a street kid firsthand. He ran away from home when he was twelve years old and lived in the New Delhi railway station for one year. As he explained it to us at the beginning of our walk one sunny morning in March, there are many reasons why children leave home.

“Poverty, abuse, drugs... Some kids think they are a burden on their family, so they leave. Others are drawn by dreams of the big city.”

Leading our group of four foreigners (American, British and Belgian) down platform number one, Shekhar points out the second line of tracks next to the opposite platform. This, he tells us, is where the children scamper when the police come after them.

“The kids like this platform because it’s where the luxury trains stop. They use the toilets and collect old newspapers and leftover food, fruits and things. But the police can beat them very badly if they catch them, so the children learn to go very fast between the trains and over the tracks, out of reach of the police.”  Read More...

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