Because every child deserves a home

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On October 11, when the world celebrated International Girl Child Day, Mary Paul, director of the Vathsalya Charitable Trust made a presentation at St Charles Kannada School. "The principal says that if a girl misses even one day of school, she goes to her house," said Mary. In a world filled with bad news, that's a heart-warming thought.

The Vathsalya Trust was founded in the year 1988 and Mary Paul, its executive director, has been working tirelessly to make sure that girl children get their due. The main objective of the trust, however, is to find every abandoned child a home, rooted firmly in the belief that nothing compares to a loving family environment.

"When a child is left with us, the first thing we do is trace the biological parents. If that isn't possible, adoption is the second alternative and while we wait for that to happen, the children are placed in foster homes close to our office," Mary Paul says.

Their office is in HRBR layout and the homeless children are placed in the care of couples with children of their own, with financial assistance being provided by Vathsalya.

Children are abandoned for all kinds of reasons. There are unwed mothers who are too young and financially unable to take care of their babies, economically backward families who only want boy children, and those who don't want to take care of a child with a physical or mental disability.

"Most of the children who come to us have disabilities of some sort, sometimes even as simple as a cleft palate," said Mary. Poorer families, who still believe that having a boy child is the only way to go, might have a series of girl children and still not give up trying. "One woman brought in her ninth girl child," she said. "Another, brought in her fifth."

The children are abandoned in all sorts of places--bus stops, train stations and even public toilets. "We actually found a two-year-old lying on the train track," said Mary. "The child had clubbed feet and there was no indication whether she had fallen out of the train or had been pushed, but there she was on the tracks." The child was covered in bruises from the fall and who she is or where she was from is still unclear.

The dangers homeless children face, alone in the city and especially at night, are quite shocking. Being small, helpless and frightened, they become easy prey for dogs and other predators and it is not uncommon for a child to be brought in after being mauled by an animal, with bite marks all over her or his face. "There was one child covered in teeth marks that were too fine to have been made by a dog," said Mary. "When we took him to a doctor, we found he'd been bitten by pigs. But he survived. Children are all survivors, especially the girls."

Infections can be picked up at every turn, from eating something bad or picking something up at a public toilet to having a small open wound that can turn nasty. Many children are brought in with septicaemia, which, if not treated in time, can become sepsis or blood poisoning.

"Septicaemia is a very common ailment among the children who are brought in to us," Mary revealed. The disease is very difficult to cure and is usually treated in the intensive care unity with IV tubes and antibiotics. "The child can turn completely black, right down to his fingernails and this is so easily picked up."

Just as there are parents who give up their children for whatever reason, there are fortunately many people out there who are willing to lend a helping hand. "We provide financial assistance to the foster families of course, but some don't even accept that," said Mary.

More affluent families prefer taking girl children in, perhaps because they are easier to look after. And their children take to the foster kids beautifully. "I have actually found that the middle class and lower middle class families find it easier to adapt to having a foster child," said Mary. "The more affluent children are actually less willing to share.”

The Trust also runs a programme to educate young girls, by giving financial assistance to schools. “We found that when we gave money to families, there was always some excuse, like an alcoholic father, for example, who spent the school fees. So we started giving this aid to schools instead, making it the responsibility of the teachers and the principal to see that the girl comes to school every day.” And through this, many girls as young as 14 and 15 have managed to escape being married off and sent away.

“Educating a girl means educating a generation,” said Mary. “I want to make sure that this generation is more educated and less deprived so there will be fewer abandoned children waiting to be picked up off the streets.”