A Visit to Sishu Vihar
Monday, January 14, 2008
Well, this was a pretty good experience to visit Sishu vihar, an AP State govt. funded and managed home for abandoned children. It's located in Yosoufguda, Hyderabad. Currently, it is supporting 200 kids out of which around 70 are normal children, rest are suffering from diseases like HIV+, hepatitis B some with mental retardation. These children age varies from 0-6 years. The children are mostly handed over by Police picked from stations, dustbins etc. (well that's painful).
The home was very well managed by the staff (sincerely speaking one of the rarest places I ever found, so well maintained by govt in India). Me and my friend Ajeet Bansal( another Sakshum volunteer) visited inside to the home where children sleep, study and have their food. Although, the visitors were not allowed inside places but the caretaker was a little courteous and gave us a orientation. I wish I could paste a pic of cute kids here (but clicking pics were not allowed)...
There, we asked for any kind of fundamental need which Sakshum volunteers can help out. Care taker replied us nothing required, as such as govt had funded it well. They had sufficient money, infrastructure and staff for helping out kids. So, we finally decided to organize a small art and craft workshop on one of the coming weekends. We found two computers too but there was no one to teach to children (I wish if someone can helpout). We stayed there almost an hour (which earlier we thought that it would be a max 15 min meeting). We talked a lot about the future of the kids and their day to day routine activities. We came to know that kids who were normal could be adopted by parents/couples so that there lives could be filled full of colors.
As a process, couples who wants to adopt should apply to Sishu Vihar with an application form. Once the application is accepted, a social worker visits to the home of the couple for accessing the home environment for the suitablity of the adoption. After the approval of the social worker, if the couple are willing to adopt a kid among those who are already there then they can ask for it and it takes less time. But, if they can not fine a kid as per their expectation then their name is registered to a waiting list. They are informed once the child is available.
Overall it was a great experience and we found a channel from where the couple can look for adoption of a kid.
For further queries, please communicate to Sishu vihar or to Sakshum (www.sakshum.com) at info@sakshum.com
Posted byNeeti at 7:08 PM 3 comments
Labels: Experiences