|
|
|
Action Card - April 2008 Urban IndiaThe latest United Nations population figures tell us that human beings face an important transition during 2008 from being a rural species to being an urban species with more than half the world’s population living in urban areas. By 2030 the towns and cities of the developing world will make up 80% of the world’s urban population. Most cities in the developing world face huge problems including crime, lack of clean water and sanitation, heat pollution and big slum areas.
India is one of the Asian countries where the urban population is increasing rapidly. Indian cities are affluent and at the same time they are places where slums and poverty are growing.
The challenge facing India and the world, is to struggle to make urbanisation a positive experience for its people by building houses, power, water, sanitation and roads, but most of all by concentrating on health care, education, and the children who are its future.
One society concentrates its work in urban Bangalore, the third largest city in India with a population of 6.5 million people. The South Asia Council for Communities and Children in Crisis works on health care, education and children’s welfare. One of its important pieces of work is with the street children, and it has pioneered awareness raising and action in cities all over India and beyond. The government of India has been persuaded to encourage many groups to get involved.
The life of the street children is very sad indeed. The children collect paper, plastics and broken bottles from streets and dustbins before recycling them in some simple way and then trying to sell them. Most of the street children are undernourished and often ill. They face harassment, abuse and are regularly arrested by the police. Many die on the streets and those who survive are bright, but live lives of fear and great stress without hope for a future.
The members of SAC-CCC began to work with the street children in 1995. They provide night shelters and offer vocational and more academic training. Camps are held every year to get the children to give up drugs and alcohol. They most often suffer from chewing bits of cigarettes. They also drink diesel and cleaning fluids as well as committing crimes to obtain hard drugs.
SAC-CCC works hard to offer the children a safe haven and to prepare them for a happy and useful future. Its work is an example to urban India and also to the growing urban world of the future.
Please send a card of support to:
Dr. Samuel Issmer (Postage 54p with Air Mail sticker) Director, SAC-CCC P O Box 3325 Banaswadi Bangalore 560043 India
|
The United Reformed Church is not responsible for the content of external websites |
