Priya (name changed) came to stay in an orphanage run by a public charitable trust Udayan Care back in 2000, several months after her mother died.
“We were three sisters but because of my father’s negligence my youngest sister died soon after my mother passed away. The family was homeless and we stayed in the Indraprastha Park for two weeks till this woman I knew took the initiative to enrol me and my sister in a home,” she said.
Priya, who speaks fluent English and has a remixed American rap song as her ringtone, now works as a research and quality analyst in a leading company in South Delhi. Now 21, Priya has stayed in this home as part of the trust’s aftercare services that ensure support even after a young person has reached adulthood and is no longer eligible to remain in a foster care home or institution.
This past Friday, Udayan Care that runs centres across the city and the country, held a day-long consultation on aftercare and rehabilitation programmes for children above the age of 18 in which SOS Children’s Village of India, Indian Alliance for Child Rights, HAQ Centre for Child Rights, All India Women’s Conference, and Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights participated.
Udayan Care managing trustee Kiran Modi feels there is no data on children moving out of institutions, which is an obstacle in securing a bright future for them.
“Smooth transition is necessary to ensure that these young children become independent adults and are not exploited by inhuman and violent life conditions that may turn many of them law offenders and exploiters,” said Dr. Modi.
She feels strongly that aftercare services should not be “time-based” - allowing homes to keep children till they turn 18 or subsequently till 21 years of age - but “need-based” to allow the young adult to find his or her feet in this world.
“A normal child who has grown up in normal conditions does not take refuge in a home like this,” she said, sitting in the home run by the trust in South Delhi.
“We have many children under our care who have missed crucial school years and are trying to catch up or have come from turbulent family lives and require special care,” she said.
Friday’s consultations resulted in the recommendations that call for government and community partnership in aftercare and developing programmes to transition from institutions to aftercare programmes and thereon to the outside world. “One of the most important requirements is the need for a national tracking system that will keep a track of all the young people leaving aftercare,” said Dr. Modi.
The trust would submit these recommendations soon to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, she added.
Another social activist Amod Kanth of Prayas said there was no provision of aftercare services in the entire country where special funding is received from the government for this purpose. “Despite this we are running a very intensive aftercare programme called Yuva Connect specifically for 150 juveniles in association with the Delhi Police, Delhi University, and other government agencies,” he said.
“Aftercare is crucial since it is the time that the child requires the most hand holding,” he added.
