STREET AND WORKING CHILDREN SUPPORT PROGRAMME

SEEDS Trust is rights based organization working for disadvantaged and vulnerable children in target areas within Dindigul District of Tamilnadu, India. SEEDS Trust’s working areas are Dindigul district, Palani town and foot hill villages of Kodaikanal. SEEDS Trust has made remarkable changes by identifying 582 vulnerable children and supporting 164 children in the shelters of Dindigul and Palani. 41 children were reunited with their families. A further 45 children were provided with education, basic care, food and shelter through our residential care programmes in Dindigul and Palani. Children’s Day was celebrated in the entire project areas with more than 1,000 children participated and 1,500 community members witnessed it.

Crèche:
In the villages located the foothills of Kodaikanal, more than 50% of the population is landless labourers. These landless labourers are struggle to provide a safe stable household environment for their children and are unable or unwilling to enroll them in regular schools. Many children are denied their primary education as a result of poverty. SEEDS Trust now runs a crèche for children under 5 years old. This provides a preschool education, care and primary school enrolment so that parents can work all day without having to care their children. 78 children were enrolled in crèche so far and 44 children were enrolled into primary schools after they successfully completed their preschool education at the SEEDS crèche.

After school Club
There are a high number of children who drop-out of school early in the villages in the foot hills of Kodaikanal. Boys are often to earn income through manual farm labour whilst young girls are forced to early marriage so that their family does not have to support them anymore. SEEDS Trust advocacy initiatives are addressing the problems of child labour and early marriage. To try and encourage children to continue school, SEEDS provides supplementary education classes at the After School Club. So far 429 children (221 Male / 208 Female) were benefited from the After School Club where additional lessons and tutorials are provided.

Vocational Skills Training
In the Vocational Training Programme at SPEDY Dindigul provided 6 month long courses in welding, electrical training and tailoring 92 boys and 31 girls. Of these, 76 successfully completed their chosen course and received certificates, and 63 were successfully helped to find suitable employment. SEEDS arranged two experience sharing programmes with previous trainees and employers and in order to boost the new vocational trainee’s confidence.

Missing information Centre
After six years of operation, SEEDS Trust has developed a good working relationship with the local police departments and it is now common practice for police and worried parents to notify SEEDS about any reports of missing children. Recently SEEDS identifies a young boy who had been reported missing from his family. SEEDS staff inform the police and his parents that he had been located and was safe. The boy was happily reunited with his family soon after SEEDS has provided some counselling and made sure the child was safe and happy with his family.

Advocacy
A Child Labour Eradication Awareness Programme was conducted in partnership with the local Labour Welfare Department. As a result of this initiative, a total of 42 children were rescued from hotels and other work places in Palani and Dindigul. SEEDS organised a rally against child trafficking in Palani and as a consequence 15 children were identified and rescued from a situation of bonded child labour that they had been sold after being trafficked from Dindigul to Bhagalpur , Bihar in North India . A survey on the extent problem and abuse among street and working children in Palani, on child labour in Palani and early child marriage in foot hill villages were carried out by SEEDS in partnership with student volunteers from the Mother Teresa University . These studies have shown that 42% of women interviewed got married between the age group of 11- 18 years. SEEDS is currently designing suitable projects and action plans with the aim of significantly reducing the occurrence of these problems in Dindigul district.