Jamghat- A Group of street Children

new delhi, Delhi, 110017 India

Mission Statement

Our Vision: To form a joyful, open living, learning collectively that facilitates growth and takes care of children's needs to their age. Our Mission: * To provide an environment where street children can evolve as physically and emotionally healthy, self-dependent individuals, living a life of their choice. * To use street and stage theater to nurture self confidence in the children and build awareness in society on key social issues related to street children. Our Objective: * Provide a residential program to children who are without a safe home or family; * Encourage and support reconciliation with families whenever possible; * Connect street children and the larger population through volunteerism and theatre; * Build volunteer and staff capacity to understand and address issues concerning street children; * Create an environment where street children are respected as individuals working for their livelihood.

About This Cause

What Does Jamghat Do? “Jamghat’s intervention can be best explained through life of Rashmi (Name Changed to protect the identity - A girl, who is part of our family for last 10 years). Rashmi is a single parent’s child. She was living on streets and as with any other child living on streets was in grave danger of being abused and thrown into professions like prostitution, begging and drug trafficking. Jamghat’s team convinced her to come to Aangan day care center (Jamghat’s intervention) with her siblings. When Jamghat’s Aanchal shelter home for girls was started in 2010, she was moved there. She was enrolled in an English medium school and was provided with regular tuition. She was also given counseling, regular diet and co-curricular exposure. Rashmi is now one of the top performers in her class and very bright in her studies. She is studying at Ryan International School and is pursuing commerce with mathematics. She secured fourth rank in her class in eleventh grade. She is also very active in sports and is an NCC cadet in her school. She is also active in theater workshops and is a keen learner of contemporary dance. Her future goal is to pursue a company secretary Course after completion of her graduation.” Jamghat's intervention has radically changed course of life for many children like Rashmi. Children who in best case would have lived their life in abuse and neglect and would have grown up as criminals or as individuals, who are forever frowned upon by rest of the society, who are outcast; found their way back to a dignified and joyful life and again started dreaming big. Jamghat is a non-profit organization comprising inspired young members and volunteers working with street children and other vulnerable children since 2003 through its comprehensive care model. Jamghat aims to help children and women living and working on the streets of Delhi to realize their dreams and re-join society by offering opportunities to make them self-sustained and more independent. Jamghat seeks to rehabilitate street children and to raise awareness within society by using the medium of street theater as well as interactive workshops, night-walks and other social means of communication. Jamghat aims not only to provide the homeless a home, but also to equip them with the tools needed to be an able, independent and responsible member of the society they inhabit. With the aim of being more than just a charity, Jamghat hopes to instill within each one that it works with, that to be good human being is as important as being a successful one. How Does Jamghat Work? Jamghat’s origin lies in a stage play, which was initially planned and scripted, in 2003, under the supervision of Action Aid India. The play was performed for the then visiting Prince Charles. It was an instant success and spread all over the country and abroad. Jamghat, the NGO, was established towards the end of 2003, when this group of street children decided against going back to the life on the streets. Amit Sinha, one of the coordinators of the play and Jamghat’s present Director, stepped in to make this dream a reality for these young and exuberant boys. Action Aid India owing to lack of funds, was unable to support this young group, but assets like determination and will, were all that they needed to survive and grow for the next five years. Jamghat has grown manifold since its inception. The old group of 15 boys has since ‘graduated’ from Jamghat towards a more fulfilling and self-sustained lives. The word has spread and the old have been replaced by new many times over. Sensing the overwhelming compassion in their hearts, the coordinators of Jamghat realized the growing need within themselves to expand. Starting as just a daily outdoor interaction with the multitudes of street children near Jama Masjid, Jamghat implement following interventions to help children and women break their cycle of deprivation and get out of the life on streets. Street performance: No programme on social change can succeed without citizen awareness and involvement because these programmes need continuous support from multiple sections of society in different forms. Jamghat uses its theatrical know-how to create street plays and theater performances to create awareness on different social issues. Street and other forms of theater work as powerful medium to communicate about complex issues with people from different sections of society. Theater helps to create different scenarios which can be felt by the people without actually living those scenarios. This becomes highly effective in sharing probable negative impacts of our present day’s actions. Street performances also give the opportunity to directly connect with the audience. At one hand, Jamghat connects with street children and their families through theater to motivate them to change their situation and at the same time, Jamghat connects with middle and upper class citizenry to invite their support and involvement in changing lives of those who are deprived. Facilitating street children to re-join society through education: It is estimated that there are more than 400,000 street and working children in Delhi alone. Most of them are runaway children. These children live on their own on the streets without any adult support and often work for 12-14 hours a day as rag pickers, shoe shine boys, dhaba (road side restaurants) assistants etc. earning less than a hundred rupees a day to meet their daily expenses. The children especially girls are subject to all forms of abuse, trafficking and are deprived of any kind of opportunities which are beneficial for their growth and development. Many street children have never been to school and others are school dropouts. With the belief in the right of every child to have a full-fledged childhood and where children have the right to protection, respect, opportunities and participation in their growth and development, Jamghat has been running two shelter homes and one day care center for 77 girls and boys in Old Delhi on a model of care and development, which includes provision of basic security and services like food, shelter and health care, priority is given to their education, capacity building, recreation and adult support & guidance. Aman is a residential home for 15 boys. Aanchal is a residential home for 13 girls and Aangan is a day care center for more than 50-60 children living in street conditions. There are 77 children and youth, who attend school and college because of Jamghat, some of them go for tuition classes and others are supported through remedial and residential classes offered by Jamghat’s staff and volunteers Livelihood for women with environment sustainability Jamghat’s 15 years of experience showed that livelihoods opportunities of women can pave the way for a bright future for themselves and their children and families, addressing economic issues of children running from their homes. Jamghat and its long-term donor and partner iPartner India have developed a model to tackle the issues of environmental degradation and living conditions of women together. Jamghat runs a tailoring unit, Ekjut, at Jama Masjid that tackles the serious issue of plastic use by hiring street women to make cotton cloth bags, which are supported by a cloth manufacturing company in Mumbai under a 100% “buy-back” scheme. These carry bags of cotton are made by women tailoring assistants who otherwise would be begging on streets of Delhi’s urban slums or worst still, get into exploitative sex work. Each bag sold allows people to avoid single-use plastic. Each bag sold also means a woman gets her wage and eventually empowered to live off the streets. This model works as follows- 1. Successfully converts production waste from garment manufacturing operations into cotton cloth bags for shopping. 2. Trains women living in street conditions to stitch and tailor good quality cloth bags. 3. Tie up with garment manufacturing company, like Meemansa to buy-back the cotton carry-bags so that women tailoring assistants start earning immediately and the bags are then sold ahead to other retail entities by partners like Meemansa. 4. This way, there is no need for Jamghat to step into the domain of marketing and business and they continue to hone their capabilities as social work practitioners Thematic Areas Jamghat Works in: 1. Residential program for children who are without a safe home or family 2. Connect street children and the larger population through volunteerism and theater 3. Create an environment where street children are respected as individuals working for their livelihood 4. Day care programme for street children 5. Livelihood for women living in extreme poverty Coverage Demographic (Gender / Socio -Eco) of Jamghat’s Work: Jamghat works with street children, homeless women living in night shelters and women from extremely low income category families like beggars. Programme reaches to all the street children and homeless women of Jama Masjid and directly benefits 15 boys at Aman, 13 girls at Aanchal, 25 women at Ekjut and 50 children at Aangan. Through our awareness and theater activities, we reach to people from both advantaged and disadvantaged strata on issues of street children and other societal concern issues like environment. What makes Jamghat unique? Jamghat is among the very few organisations working on children issues using theater as the primary mode of entry, motivation and awareness creation. At the same time, Jamghat follows up this intervention with dedicated programme like day care, residential homes and tailoring units to handhold those motivated to break their cycle of deprivation. Awards: 1. Guide star India (Gold) 2. "Proud Partner" to The Global Fund for Children. 3. The Humanitarian Award from JD Institute, New Delhi. 4. Sangam CSR as ‘’The Nurturer’’ to contribute towards child welfare

Jamghat- A Group of street Children
18-A, Mig Flats, Sheikh Sarai, Phase-1, Triveni P
new delhi, Delhi 110017
India
Phone 7042324248
Unique Identifier 5693760783692_e700