When we went to visit our school children’s homes last week, we went into one of the poorer residential areas of Vrindavan where several of our children live. Coming out of one of the houses, we just wanted to turn towards the next street when we saw some girls playing, one of whom we recognized as a new girl at our school. It was Nandini, a 13-year-old girl, who has started going to our school in July together with her 12-year-old brother Mohit. We asked her where she lived and told her that we would come to visit her home now. We got a reaction that we had not expected.
While normally children get happy and excited to take us to their homes, Nandini got visibly uncomfortable. She told us if we now went to their home, her mother would complain about her younger brother and later hit her and Mohit. Hearing this, we stopped and first let her tell us a little bit about the situation at her home.
Nandini’s and Mohit’s biological mother died ten years ago. They have a younger sister who has been living with the family of their late mother since her death. Four years ago their father re-married and their new mother, as they call her, gave birth to a baby girl who is now nearly three years old. The older girl and boy love their stepsister – but they have big problems with their stepmother. She tells them off very often, insults them and hits them. This is why they like to spend their time mostly out on the road instead of playing at home.
We decide to go and visit their family anyway and try to talk with the mother about the violence that these children obviously experience regularly. On the way to their home Mohit joins us and we ask them how they like our school. They had both been going to another school in Vrindavan but shifted to ours in this year because it got too expensive for the family to afford. In a normal school they needed to pay monthly fees, fees for the exams, buy the uniforms, pens, books and whatever else is necessary. It is not easy to afford the whole amount for their father, who is a helper at a tailor’s shop and earns about three US-Dollars per day. Five people have to live from that. Admission in our school comes at no cost at all – it is not surprising that he brought them to us.
For the parents, it is a financial relief – the children see another benefit, too: in their previous school they were beaten by the teachers. Corporal punishment is still very common in India, so the children are very happy to be in the only school that they know of where no teacher hits a child.
When we reached the children’s home, we had a talk with their stepmother. She openly and clearly said that in their home, there is a lot of bad language, swearwords, insults and beating, slapping and hitting. Why does she hit them? Because they need it, it is necessary, they are naughty and need to learn.
We know that physical violence is not a rarity in a normal Indian home. Nevertheless or actually due to this, we did our best in a lengthy talk to make this mother understand that she should refrain from hitting them. We have explained, we have talked and we have tried our best. We know that with our school we are giving Nandini and Mohit a safe place away from home, free of violence and we hope that with our efforts now and in future, their family may change their ways, too.
If you want to help us in our work, you can do so by sponsoring a child or sponsoring the food for a day.
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