It is estimated that 18 million children are living on the streets in India and 11 million among them are from urbanareas. The children who are habituated in the street life, never get enrolled in school, if some of them started school, but dropped out before eighth grade, a lack of education perpetuates the cycle of poverty and increases the risk of ending up on the streets.

At our 10 communitycentreslocated in slum areas in Kolkata and Howrah, we work with local volunteers and authorities to create a brighter future for children aged between 6 to 14 years living in the slums. In addition to offering support and healthcare to the children and their families, we provide courses through Joyful learning sessions to prepare the children for school. After 6-12 months, they start school, while we continue to offer social and academic support through tutoring and recreational activities. In 2021, 390 studentsmainstreamed from our community center.

In 2021, we initiated tutoring support for the children’s projects in all our community centers in small groups, by professional educators to prevent the children from dropping out of school. Total 5of 42 students enrolled under the tutoring project.

Additionally, we offer computer training for children and adolescents to develop their technological and communicational skills, while improving their future educational and occupational opportunities.115 children and adolescentsenrolled in computer training classes.

To break the barriers of menstruation , we initiated Adolescent Health Program with 800 adolescents. We tried to minimize the social stigma on menstruation by creating awareness, health camps, education counseling, group meetings, and workshops, and, to ensure privacy and hygiene for the women and adolescents we are building “Women Friendly Toilets” in the slum areas and installed sanitary napkin vending machines along with incinerators in the women-friendly toilets, the vending machines are run by the contribution of the community, and from each vending machine, monthly 600- 800 sanitary napkins were sold.

To ensure sustainable development we build local forces be it a pool of change agents or local club members, created the income generation sources for the local institution, and motivate them to contribute towards developing the communitybeyond our presence, the modifications are more likely to be long-lasting, as the residents take ownership and accountability for lifting and developing the community.