Frishta Children’s Village - Giving Indian street children a home, an education, a hope and a future
Last updated 11/5/2009 4:10:54 PM
Project for the Construction of Frishta Children's Village at Mukandpur, Punjab, North India
1. Intro
The well-being of India's children has not kept pace with the country's economic development: half of all Indian children are undernourished (nearly double the rate for children in sub-Saharan Africa); six out of every hundred babies die before their first birthday; and half of all children do not complete eight years of schooling.
There are additional hardships for the girl child in Punjab where boys are culturally and economically preferred. The number of girls born and surviving has hit an all time low compared to boys. Increasing numbers of female foetuses are being aborted and baby girls are deliberately neglected and left to die. In one area of Punjab, there are just 30 girls to every 100 boys.
2. Project Background
Frishta are committed to restoring children trapped by poverty, socially excluded, and discriminated against, helping them to gain an education, life and work skills that will lift them out of child-labour and the ‘poverty cycle'. Since 1999, Frishta have been investigating different models and methods of child care to best achieve our aims. Having visited many orphanages and children's homes in Punjab, Chandigarh, Delhi and Maharashtra, we have decided that small family homes grouped together in a ‘children's village' with all necessary learning, training, counselling, medical and play facilities is the best approach.
Since 2005, Frishta has been sponsoring a small number of disadvantaged Indian children, but the needs are so great that we are constructing a purpose-built children's village. Frishta operates in India through the Frishta India Charitable Trust (No. 374) which has Indian Government permission (FCRA) to transfer funds from abroad.
Our Mission Statement is, ‘Giving children a home, an education, a hope and a future'.