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 Fighting for survival in an uncaring and hostile environment, street children often grow up to be resilient. As tough is the world they grow up in, that risky is their life. The migration of children to the streets is often the result of extreme poverty where basic needs of social secu rity are not met within the household. Once on the street, children are vulnerable and insecure. Many turn to drugs to cope with their stressful and precarious lives. They survive abuse at home and from other street children, live in poverty-afflicted, chaotic neighborhoods and have almost no access to educational and health services. Shunned and neglected they become vulnerable to drug use and being trafficked. They are stigmatized and shunned by mainstream society and considered as potential criminals. Theirs is a daily fight- almost everyday they confront risks of being tortured, beaten, trafficked, coerced into sexual exploitation and substance abuse. These children, on the street and working, deserve a better future where their basic social rights like health, safety and education are protected and promoted.
(ROSA) focuses on reducing the vulnerability of street and working children to substance and trafficking through a rights based approach. It also builds their awareness on the physical and psycho-social risks that children face in the street environment instilling in them self-reliance and empowering them to seek solutions to their problems. The overarching goal is that the education, life skills and awareness about substance use and trafficking will eventually help them develop their abilities on a basis of equal opportunity, individual judgment and sense of moral and social responsibility.
Like UNODC ROSA there are other organizations who support the above initiatives. One such organization is Butterflies that helps street and working children in Delhi which initiated the children's saving and life skill education programme -
Children's Development Khazana (CDK). The Khazana project was conceptualized and initiated by Butterflies, as a vehicle to empower street and working children. The project is operational in the South Asian region namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. CDK supports to empower street and working children with skills for democratic functioning, teach them to prioritise their needs, budget, save and manage their money and provide them with an education to become self reliant, productive adults in society.
Butterflies organized a three day workshop from 16th to 18th March 2009 where members of CDK shared their experiences about budgeting as well as on initiating businesses/co operatives. Part of the workshop was also "Kaleidoscope", an event for and by children of South Asia at Dilli Haat organized on 19th March 2009. Skits and performances were put up by children (as shown in the above picture) from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka integrating key messages on substance use prevention, violence and other issues pertinent to them. UNODC ROSA supported this programme since it was valuable and contributed to further strengthening its initiatives on empowering street children. "These kind of initiatives are instrumental in reducing the risk factors of street children and empowers them with skills to make better life choices", said Bidisha Pillai, UNODC ROSA, Officer in Charge for "Prevention of Drugs and HIV in India & UN-Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (South Asia)". She was also one of the guests who attended this event.
Events such as these may be small in scale, but they feed into the larger, global efforts to raise public awareness of the challenges faced by street children as well as the opportunities for their development. Most importantly it helps to create a place where children have a voice, a choice and feel safe from abuse and neglect. UNODC ROSA chooses to collaborate with organizations like Butterflies, to support such initiatives, because they help in conveying UNODC's key messages and mandates directly to the intended beneficiaries, in this case the children, to whom it matters most.
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