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Description
Children of migrant workers, for whom the road only led to brick kilns or factory gates till date, can hope for a better life now at a seasonal hostel at Namkum in Ranchi. Jyotishka, the hostel started by state-based NGOs ASHA and Tomorrow Foundation, started in 2012 and supports 80 children of migrant workers at present. Manila Kujur (10) used to stay with her family in West Bengal where she, along with the rest of her family, was employed in the brick kiln. Talking about her days at the kiln, Kujur said, " One of my sisters fell ill once but my parents had no money for providing her medical assistance, and after a few days she died. This incident really frightened me and since then I was secretly hoping for a chance to escape the poverty and long hours of work." When Manila was taken to the seasonal hostel, she was underweight and weak. However, after seven months in the hostel, Manila is now liking her studies and is also a football player. "I love studying and want to be a teacher when I grow up. Hindi and mathematics are my favourite subjects and football is my favourite sport now. I am glad I don't have to spend my whole day burning bricks anymore," Manila said. Moti Munda (12), too talked about his dys at a brick factory in the state where he worked with his parents. "I am here for around a year now. When I was at brick factory I used to work with my parents and burn the hot bricks. During that time I always used to wonder how it would be like to go to school. Now at hostel, I feel all my dreams are coming true." There are three such seasonal hostels, housing 200 students, in the state being run by the NGO in Namkum, Seraikela and Khunti. Each of these hostels has two teachers and two cooks who prepare food for children and help them in studies. Ajay Kumar Jaiswal, Secretary of ASHA, said, "The children living here are between the age of six and 14 years. Their parents usually leave them in the hostel in the month of October and take them home the next year around May when the harvest season starts. "During the period these children are in hostel, they are enrolled in the nearby government school where they have lunch and live in the hostel, where we provide them food for the rest of day along with clothes, shoes, sports materials, books and other essential materials," he said. When the hostel was started, finding residents was a big problem for the NGO as parents preferred taking their children along or sending them to work elsewhere to add to the income of the family. "Convincing the workers was a big problem as they did not want to lose a hand to contribute to family income. Most of these migrant labourers have witnessed migration in their family for ages and were reluctant to stop it. We had to convince them about how good their child's future will be if he studied instead and then only did they agree to leave the children in hostel," Jaiswal said.
Keywords
children, migrant workers, family, NGO, residents, work, labourers, income, hostel, migration, child's future, parents, teachers, cook
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