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.

Lunch was “snatched” in a local snack/take away shop and then off to our next stop – The Tata Institute of Social Sciences. We were greeted by Ramesh Datta who gave a brief outline of training in Social Enterprise. After a question and answer session we went to meet Angelie Montero in another room to watch a short film on the Dharavi community which is the largest slum in Asia containing 800,000 inhabitants. The film was produced and acted out by the Dharavi community and it was funded by previous inhabitants. Their efforts to provide realistic scenes gave me some concern when a group of children were acting out an earthquake scene using genuine falling rocks.

Our day was completed by drinks at the opulent Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay followed by our evening meal at the home of Chandita Mukherjee and her husband overlooking the sea. The best way to describe this is a large traditional home with warm hospitality and avid conversation  provided by our hosts and delicious food delivered by their very attentative staff.

Following an interesting discussion on the Eunuch community in India came Quote of the day from Rupert – “If I were a woman I would find you attractive” to a stunned Farook!