Vocational Training Centre and Welfare Programme - Delhi, India

The Training Centre offers skills development in the following market-related trades: audio-equipment and television repair; beauty care; driving; electrician trade; embroidery; garment-making; tailoring; and typing. Each course lasts for 6 months, with the exception of driving, which is of two months' duration. Most of these trades are evaluated by Industrial Training Institute (ITI) staff and certificates are awarded by the Directorate of Training and Technical Education, National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi.

The welfare programme is located in Mahavir Enclave - right in the midst of the children's huts. Operating for 3 hours each afternoon, the programme draws upon the resources (such as classrooms and the playground) of the Sulabh Public School. Four volunteers who include teachers and office workers handle different programme components. For example, they contact and mobilise parents to allow their non-school-going children to participate in the programme. The boys and girls are given check-ups for hygiene and cleanliness. They then undergo supervised physical training and participate in drill and group games. They are given lessons in group song and dance by trained volunteers. On special occasions, they perform on the stage before an audience. They also receive instruction in basic and functional literacy in accordance with a pre-designed syllabus; their scholastic achievement is periodically evaluated. So far, 950 children have participated in this free programme.

Children, Economic Development, Education.

Organisers claim that skill development is crucial for those with little or no education, such as the Balmikis. Many Balmikis are skilled in low-paying jobs and traditional crafts such as sanitation, midwifery, leather work, and basket-making. Organisers say that their association with these types of work has lowered their status in society, leaving them to live in slums characterised by physical and social degradation. Children in these areas, organisers claim, bear the brunt of this lifestyle. Many of them have never been to school or have dropped out; for lack of organised recreation, they loiter. A few of them also engage in such low-paying work as rag picking, domestic help, and dish washing in wayside kiosks; others live on the streets. Seldom, organisers claim, do their parents realise the gravity of their physical, social, or moral situation.