Awareness

Raising awareness within slum communities about pressing social and legal issues

The need
Our work
Life changing results

The need

  • A majority of inhabitants in slum communities are migrants relocating for better employment prospects from across India. Once they settle in a slum, they have little access to public education, health and livelihood services primarily because they lack local legal documentation such as identity/residence proof.
  • Residents in slum communities are often from very varied cultural backgrounds and they bring with them certain backward practices that may have been traditions in their native communities. Once in the new environment of urban poverty, residents are also prey to social evils that they are often unaware about.
  • Therefore, issues like child labour, human trafficking, child marriage, gender bias, drug abuse, domestic violence, alcoholism and unhealthy lifestyles are very common and negatively impact the entire slum community.

Our work

  • We conduct weekly and monthly programmes within slum communities to raise awareness about the importance of acquiring valid identity proofs. We also train and encourage communities on managing their resources sustainably.
  • Our teams conduct frequent awareness camps for residents facilitated by experts on the ill-effects of many social evils present in slum communities. PAN India is one such program that runs in rural villages across seven Indian states, bringing awareness about human trafficking and abuse. This helps reduce the sourcing of human trafficking within India.
  • Awareness camps are followed up by regular house visits throughout the community and focused one-on-one counseling and aid for families in need.

Life changing results

  • After our legal awareness camps, many families have enrolled for and procured valid government documentation. With these documents, they have been able to receive the public services they have rightful access to.
  • In partnership with other organisations on the field, we have been able to rescue and rehabilitate many men caught in substance abuse and alcoholism. Moreover, we have helped many young women who were victims of human trafficking successfully re-enter into society.
  • Through regular house visits and counseling, many families have set aside early marriages for their girl children, pulled them out of child labour, enrolled their kids in education and received legal and emotional help for issues like domestic violence.

Help us create awareness by supporting the work of Vision Rescue

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Chandini’s story

Chandani used to attend regular school until class 4, when she dropped out to briefly visit her native village.

She’s almost 15! Back in our hometown in Bihar she would be considered old enough to be married!” says Chandani Gafar Ansari’s father, a migrant hanger-maker who lives in the slum community of Shivajinagar, Mumbai. Their rented house is home to his wife, a homemaker, his teenage nephew Hasrath, his 14-year-old daughter Chandani and her younger brother and sister.

Chandani used to attend regular school until class 4, when she dropped out to briefly visit her native village. After she returned to Mumbai though, she never rejoined school, and at 14 years her family began hunting for a groom for her.

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It was at this stage that one of our community workers met Chandani at home, and enquired about why the school-aged girl wasn’t being given an education. Chandani’s father was adamant at the suggestion. He believed that Chandani had studied more than enough, and was ready to be married. He felt that educating girls all the way into their adulthood was customary only in metropolitan cities like Mumbai, and he felt compelled to stay true to the traditions of his forefathers.

For nearly five months our community worker visited the family to convince them of the ills of child marriage, and the accompanying health hazards for teenage girls. While Chandani’s mom relented, her father took longer to be convinced. Eventually though, the family agreed to allow Chandani to complete her school education and admitted her in Vision Rescue’s Open Basic Education program (OBE).

At her OBE classes, Chandani is picking up her education from where she left off. She can soon give her OBE exams that are equivalent to the formal schooling she underwent earlier and when the new academic year begins, she will be enrolled once again into regular school. Her younger brother and sister have joined our education programs too, and her cousin brother Hasrath now volunteers with Vision Rescue as a community intern.

Thank you for stepping in to impact an entire family like Chandani’s ! Because of your support teenage girls like her can continue with their education and grow to their fullest potential!

Make a difference to someone like Chandini

SPONSOR A LOCATION: £100PER MONTH
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