SALAAM BAALAK TRUST (SBT – see www.salaambaalaktrust.com) began in 1989 after the sucessful movie ‘Salaam Bombay’ by Mira Niar that pointed out the problems of the children, that leave on the street.
Former streetchildren live in different shelter homes like Apna Ghar. This is one out of 4 shelter homes for boys between 14 and 18 years old.
Salaam Baalak Trust runs five 24-hour full care shelters for children, one being devoted to girl children. These shelters provide the children security, a sense of home, and an opportunity to receive all the critical inputs of childhood They aim at restoring the childhood in children besides instilling in them the values of independence and decision-making, education and social values and financial self-dependence to become mature and responsible citizen of the country and caring and responsive members of the society.
SBT has been helping children find childhood, especially children in distress and children in difficult circumstances. Circumstances that detach them from the joys of childhood.
For 20 years, we have been working with children who have a turbulent past. Children who are uncared for, children who do not have a support system to lean on. SBT has been able to provide a caring atmosphere to thousands of street and runaway children in Delhi. While caring for these children itself has been joyous, reuniting them with their families has been extremely satisfactory. Our little help has been of great implication for these children – helping to make their present more secure and their future more promising. Through our different services, we have been able to reach out to more than three thousand and three hundred children during the year gone by. While some of them remain in our care, many of them moved beyond – empowered and enthusiastic in their response to a world of opportunities.
SBT reaches out to children in need through its four shelter homes and five contact points. Our contact points are our window to the problems and needs of children. For children it’s a doorstep to a caring and secure atmosphere where they can unwind, forget their past and move on to shelter homes, which provide a full range of services including education, health and nutrition, skill building and recreation.
While our educational programs worked with 2382 children of various age groups, 2750 children were covered by a clutch of inputs relating to attitude, mental ability and agility, and health services. Skills training and vocational education programs tried to equip 130 children with different capacities to make them financially self-dependent and contribute to their families and society in meaningful ways.
This 20 years young organization has already supported more than 50.000 children from all over the country. Some of them are now freelance photographers, dancers, choreographers, film makers, actors, puppeteers, and theatre directors. And many others are working in companies and agencies such as Matrix, Café Coffee Day, Benetton, Pizza Hut, Miditech, DS Constructions, and Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust with decent salary.
