Help in providing a safe night shelter for street children

**Bajrang and his two older brothers are ragpickers.** He has three siblings. All four of them along with their mother came from their village to Mumbai to earn a living. They live in the Saat Rasta area of Mumbai. Bajrang, despite being a rag picker, pursued his education on his own. He enrolled himself in the Marwadi Vidyalaya Hindi Medium school and passed class IX with a distinguished 75% last year. **He financed his education by doing small jobs and from his earnings as a ragpicker.**Bajrang understood that now, being in his final school year, he would need to focus a lot more on his studies. He wanted to study with no distractions and difficulties in having to earn his livelihood. **He approached YMCA Mumbai Central looking for a safe place to stay where he need not work but could concentrate on his studies.** YMCA then guided him to the approached us for his admission to the Salaam Baalak Trust Night Shelter at Andheri. Bajrang has adjusted very well to life at our Andheri shelter. He is a hardworking and disciplined boy, obedient and helpful. He does all the chores and tasks assigned to him. He also helps the younger boys with their studies. He has been enrolled in special coaching classes to help him score even better in his SSC. **He is so focused on his studies that he turns down opportunities to go on fun outings. He prefers to stay back and study. His ambition is to become a civil engineer or architect!** With the support he gets at Salaam Baalak Trust, he is sure to realize his dreams. **You can also help poor children like Bajrang get access to a safe and caring environment that helps them with a chance of a better future. You can give with confidence because every program listed is [GIVEASSURED](https://www.giveindia.org/giveassured).**

Salam Balak Trust (SBT), Mumbai was founded in 1988 after the success of the film Salaam Bombay. The Andheri Centre is the most recently opened. The Centre has a day-care for boys and girls and a night shelter for boys. Donations to this program will contribute to a fund which will cover the cost of operating expenses and the salary of the shelter home staff.At the center, the children receive access to a host of programs and activities covering education, nutrition, medical and health care, life skills and counseling and extra-curricular activities. The children are enrolled in schools and are helped with their studies at the Centre. They also receive a nutritious mid-day meal and evening snacks. The boys in the night shelter have all their meals at the center including breakfast and dinner. The center currently provides shelter at night to 30 street children. When you donate to this program, you help poor homeless children get access to a safe place to stay for the night.

In the last twenty seven years Salaam Baalak Trust, Mumbai has helped thousands of children come off the streets and into a safe and nurturing environment. Today they provide an integrated safety net of services catering to the individual needs of street children in Mumbai, covering the entire realm of child development from physical and medical needs to encompassing the educational, creative, cognitive, social and vocational needs of the children. The objective is to provide them every opportunity for holistic development so that they become responsible, contributing members of society. SBTM has three Day Care Centres located at Chowpatty, Andheri and Kalyan. Two of these Centres also provide Night Shelter and there is a Balwadi at the Chowpaty centre. The Solapur Project for rehabilitation of Pardhi street children has been expanded to include a Day Care as well as a Night Shelter. There is also a Careers Project that gives direct training and subsequent employment opportunities to street children in partnership with the Business Community and other NGOs. Salaam Baalak Trust, Mumbai are also the collaborative organization with ChildLine for Thane city.Salaam Baalak Trust was born in 1989 with a portion of the proceeds from the film Salaam Bombay! by Mira Nair. The Trust began its work with an aim to give street children choices and a chance to experience the joys of childhood. Agnes Fernandes began as a Project Co-ordinator at Salaam Baalak Trust Mumbai after having spent almost 2 decades in the Corporate Sector with Proctor and Gamble. She moved to the position of educational Consultant so that she could work with all the projects at SBTM. She was Chowpatty Coordinator and that and other experience has put her in the perfect position to be the Programme Director.education of street children in Mumbai and Thane district - 620Small children (pre-schoolers) attending Balwadis in Chowpatty and our Contact Points in Sathe Nagar, Saibaba Nagar, Shanti Nagar and Kranti Nagar - 49Children getting shelter in night shelters in Andheri, Borivali, Kalyan and Solapur - 229Youth from Grades 8, 9, 10 & College taken for exposure visits to various organisations - 94Rehabilitation of street children including drop outs from Solapur, through referrals to other institutions and/ or CWC or rehabilitation with their families - 6Pardhi community children educated in schools in Solapur - 106Youth helped for Vocational training, Job placements - 3