Suffer the children to come…

Hyderabad, and India in general, has a multitude of challenges. That’s why we’re here. We’ve seen many, just like we’ve seen many beautiful and inspiring places and people. One particular challenge that reaches out and pulls at our heart strings, as you’d expect, has to do with the children. The NGOs here call it child labor.

We’ve seen children with numbers tattooed on their forearms. It was a little shocking. Thankfully, not every child has such marks – at least child labor here is not an institutionalized and rationalized crime like what occurred in Europe during World War II. Child labor here most frequently is a family challenge where parents cannot afford to meet their family needs and so they either hire out their children or even sell them out-right. Once a child is working, families become dependent on that additional income. It becomes difficult to break away from the practice. Other child labor happens when children cannot make it to school (especially in rural India), drop out, and begin working. It is tragic, for they are truly adorable. Check out this cute little guy!

Children so "employed" do all sorts of things – work in the fields, as aids in any profession imaginable from mechanics to carpentry, as house-helps or in domestic labor, in hotels, in factories… We met or heard of kids from each of these. This boy told his story - he helped fix scooters for a couple years before finding himself at this bridge camp we were visiting.

But the great news is these children were smiling and happy. We visited what are called “bridge camps” from a great organization called the MV Foundation. They advocate for children’s rights, work with rural villages where child labor is an endemic problem, train and help parents come to realize that they can find other income sources, and show the benefits of kids having a full education.

For those kids MV helps to rescue, they have built residential bridge schools to help them catch up to the level of learning they should be at given their current age. The boys and girls at these camps are happy, and determined. Many want to go on and become doctors, teachers, engineers. They love to show their talents and what they’re learning too. Many sang for us, told their stories, and even played volleyball with us. The girls here were showing their English skills, and the boys below performed a moving dance piece for us.

You can also watch a video our country director recorded of the girls singing a song to our team. It's very moving - especially after it was translated for us. The girls sing about claiming their rights as the future of India. It was beautiful. 

Katrina will be working with MV Foundation this summer. They are looking for people with skills like photography and videography so that the stories of these children can be documented and shared with other organizations who are combatting child labor. MV has a network with such NGOs in fifteen different countries. We’re supper excited that Katrina will get to work with the kids so closely, recording their stories and taking photos… They really are precious and beautiful. Here's Katrina playing with some of the girls outside.