Day 11 - India

The start of another “hot day in downtown Bombay” (quote from Bob) brought us to The Childine India Foundation. This was formed in 1986 by Ms Jeroo Billimoria out of the recognised need to provide a 24 hour service for the street children in India. It carries the motto of “help us to care for the children in distress”.

After a short presentation on the formation and development of Childline, we were all impressed by its resourcefulness and its enormous growth in its 10 year history. The project receives calls from Children on the freephone number 1098 and then offers either telephone help or relays to other organisations details of the location of the child. The child will then either be collected or the issues dealt with on site. One of the many stories recalled to us was of a small child who had been spotted by an adult at a railway station who was obviously very ill and had lain motionless for days. A team was called in to deal with the boy who had a maggot infested infection on his arm but was refused admission to the hospital due his dirty condition. The child was then taken back to the Childline offices to be cleaned and readmitted to the hospital. It appears the child had run away from home following parental disputes and after some time they were traced and reunited with the child.

Small groups of us them hopped into a taxi to go a Childline centre at a local hospital. Our driver was interested in the service provided by CIF and there was a suggestion that stickers should be distributed to them. The Childline centre was situated in foyer of the main entrance to the hospital, but nothing prepared me for the dirt and stench of urine that greeted us.