Kindergarten in the Red Light District

 Last week I had to go to the Kidderpore red light district to deliver a donation of toothbrushes and toothpaste. I've been many times to the drop-in-center, but always in the afternoon because most of the children are in school until 2pm. But that day I reached at 10am and saw for the first time the "day creche" for children under 5 years. It was literally a garden of kinder! They were all seated on a mat, writing the English alphabet on their mini-blackboards, some with their tongues hanging out in concentration. I was thoroughly impressed by how well-behaved they were. In America, kindergartens are usually loud, chaotic, art studios with perhaps a half hour of quiet during nap time. But here, maybe because of their chaotic homes, the children were content to sit quietly and focus on making their a's perfectly round. One 4-year old girl was so impressive; she would write the full alphabet in about 5 minutes, erase it, do it again, erase that, do it again, until she thought every letter was perfect. At this point she would take it up to the teacher for review. If anything was out of place she would re-do the whole thing again! The teacher winked at me and said "she's very intelligent." Trying to make a joke, I asked the girl to give me some of her intelligence, but she shook her head no! She was keeping it all for herself!

As I was leaving, I couldn't help but think how lucky these children are to at least have this two hour period of normalcy in their lives. Because the mothers have no other option, the children sleep under the mother's bed while she's with a "client." They grow up surrounded by abuse, drugs, alcohol, and utter filth. Coming to the center every morning allows them to escape this chaos and attempt to learn something useful. And the best part is they get a hot meal after class! Without this, they probably wouldn't get any actual meal the whole day. Many of the mothers in this district are so poor that they eat leftover rice from the "madam" and I doubt the children get any better. Without this drop-in-center, I honestly don't know how any child could survive in the red light district for many years. But it is there, and the teacher is a survivor herself who is a strong community advocate for change. With the donations of school sponsors we're able to contribute to the drop-in-center and ensure that these children get at least those two hours. And hopefully when they're older, we will find sponsors for each of them and enroll them in a good school. Maybe instead of writing alphabets, that little girl will one day be writing beautiful poetry, or physics calculations, or new laws to protect women's rights. 

To learn more about our school sponsorship program please click on the "Sponsor" link.