A place to call home

Housed between a large Ganesha temple on one side and a post-office on the other, in a quiet, middle-class neighbourhood, the Sharanya Children’s Home echoes to the shouts of boisterous children at play every evening.

Once they return from school, they are allowed a brief period of playtime before they are bundled inside for tuition and homework.

Later comes another period of leisure, followed by dinner and prayers, and then they go to bed early so they can be in time for school next morning.

It sounds like a simple schedule, but considering the age of these girls ranges from three to 15 and that they all come from diverse backgrounds including often from broken homes, it is indeed a tough job to keep the home running smoothly and the children in the happy, healthy state that one always finds them. The management and the hands-on staff know from their decades of experience.

Set up in 1991 by a well-known NGO called Karnataka State Council for Child Welfare (KSCCW), the Sharanya Children’s Home is a residential facility for girl-children who are orphans or have single parents. The KSCCW was set up by Lokasundari Raman in 1955 and this home is one of its several ongoing projects.

Vocational training
Sharanya Home provides food, clothing, shelter to the children and education too; they are sent to a nearby government school.

After the child has passed tenth standard, she is sent to the KSCCW’s hostel in its head office at Jayamahal. The children are then put through vocational training courses and helped to find a job. Once they are financially independent and/or married i.e, they have acquired their own support systems, they are sent away to begin a new life.

Explains Meenakshi Thiagarajan, General Secretary, KSCCW and Member-in-Charge of the Sharanya Children’s Home who lovingly oversees the management of the home, “Once they are out of school, many of them opt for beautician courses, or opt for training as primary school teachers, etc.

“We help to place them in suitable jobs. Sometimes, the girls also find suitable boys or their parent finds one for them and brings the prospective groom to us. We then also collect funds and celebrate the marriage.” Meenakshi visits the home every working day of the week.

In that sense, the Sharanya Home is a godsend to these girls who would otherwise have probably ended up as street children or become victims of some kind of abuse given their parents’ inability to look after them, or have fallen prey to antisocial elements.
Once a parent approaches Sharanya Home or KSCCW for help, a social worker is sent for verification to the child’s home. Sometimes, an orphan might be referred to the Home by a kind citizen. Once KSCCW is satisfied that it is a deserving case, the child is taken in and cared for in every way till she completes her schooling.

Giving and sharing
Explains B Nagamani, Warden aka House Mother: “Some children get very homesick in the first few weeks. There are others who take only a day or two to fit in and begin mingling happily with the others.” But sooner or later, the children soon begin bonding with one another and begin to regard this institute as their true home and the other inmates as family. Nagamani is the hands-on manager who has an assistant R Mercy.

For the children, every once or twice a week, it is celebration time. That is because so many people come here to share their happiness with these children on the occasion of a birthday, a marriage anniversary or a housewarming in their own homes.

So, on many evenings and often on Sundays too, you would find guests at Sharanya. One day, it’s an excited five-year-old girl who has been brought here by her family to celebrate her birthday.

On another day, we met a newly married couple who came here for their first marriage anniversary; they knew of this place because the girl’s parents had visited this place with gifts during their silver jubilee anniversary.

On a Saturday evening, 23-year-old P Shivanand who had just been awarded a gold medal in engineering came here directly from the convocation with his parents to distribute schoolbags and stationery items among the children. “I have secured a seat in a prestigious US university. I will come here again before leaving for that country,” he said beaming with happiness.

Deepika Naidu, who has been coming here with her husband for the past five years on the birthdays of her two sons, points out, “It is not only about cutting a cake and distributing it with sweets, fruits and books among these kids. It is also our way of teaching our own children the values of generosity and giving, and of demonstrating to them how happiness is doubled when you share it with others. Especially the underprivileged.

HELPING HAND
* Set up in 1991 by a NGO called Karnataka State Council for Child Welfare (KSCCW), the Sharanya Children’s Home is a residential facility for girl-children who are orphans or have single parents.

* Once a parent approaches Sharanya Home or KSCCW for help, a social worker is sent for verification to the child’s home.

* Once KSCCW is satisfied that it is a deserving case, the child is taken in and cared for in every way till she completes her schooling.

* After the child has passed tenth standard, she is sent to the KSCCW’s hostel in its head office at Jayamahal. The children are then put through vocational training courses and helped to find a job.