Indian city takes school to street kids

Program embraced by community that is struggling to afford homes

To get street children in the western Indian city of Thane into school, civic officials first forced their parents to send them to regular state schools. The kids showed up late or not at all, and dropped out quickly.

So the officials decided on “signal schools”, or small schools that would be close to where the kids lived — on the street, near a traffic signal.

Partnering with a nonprofit, they opened the first such school last June in a remodeled shipping container under a flyover at one of the busiest traffic signals in Thane, just outside Mumbai. This time, the kids stayed. “It was a Herculean task to get the parents to send their kids to school, as for them it meant the loss of a pair of hands to earn extra money,” said Manish Joshi, a deputy commissioner at the Thane municipal corporation.

“But they came around, and the community has also really embraced the program. For a city with a space crunch and a migrant population on the streets, this is the best solution .”

There is no official data for the number of street children in India, with some charities estimating it to be about 1 million. Most accompany their families as they migrate from

Bhatu Sawant, head of Samarth Bharat Vyaspith

rural areas to the cities in search of better prospects.

Mumbai, India’s financial hub, has long been a magnet for migrants. There are more than 37,000 street children in the city, according to a 2013 study by charity Action-Aid and the Tat a Institute of Social Sciences.

Unable to afford even the cheapest housing, migrants often spill into nearby cities, including Thane, where they end up on the pavements and under flyovers, doing odd jobs, selling trinkets and begging at traffic signals to make ends meet.

To set up the school, civic officials cleared a space under the flyover and fenced it off. They set up a small play area at one end with a swing set and a slide, and placed a guard at the gate.

The container, 10 meters by 3 meters, is painted in bright colors, with the alphabet and numbers, and is fitted with fans and lights.

The classroom can accommodate about 35 children, and there is also a teacher’s room, and shelves against the walls.

Since the kids help their parents sell trinkets and flowers during the rush hour in the morning and evening, the school operates from about 10:30 am to 5:30 pm.

The staff spent the initial months teaching the kids about the importance of cleanliness and grooming, to not fight over food or hold out their palms as they were taught to by their parents when they were sent to beg.

“You can’t put these kids in a regular school and expect them to adjust. The school has to adapt to their lives,” said Bhatu Sawant, head of nonprofit Samarth Bharat Vyaspith, which runs the Signal School in Thane.

“But just because they are on the streets, it doesn’t mean they can’t get an education. If these kids don’t go to school, we have to take the school to them.”

However, in a city of high rents and little affordable housing, there are other challenges.

“The real challenge is addressing migration and homelessness,” Joshi said.

You can’t put these kids in a regular school and expect them to adjust. The school has to adapt to their lives.”