Day and Night Crèche

Day and Night Crèche
Brief background of the Crèche:
Saheli Sangh is the only collective of women in sex work in Pune city. The Sangh was established in 1998 with the collective efforts of the women, to empower the women through collectivisation and change the attitude of the main stream society towards sex work.
In consideration of its mission, Saheli started to provide care and support to the needy women in sex work through escort and referral services at various government hospitals and clinics. The Sangh networked with various residential schools to facilitate the admission of the children of women in sex work.
During the process of networking and providing these services, the residential schools laid various conditions as a framework for admission. These conditions put pressure for Saheli to provide alternative sources of getting the child admitted at other educational and residential schools/homes.
The women in sex work finds difficult to perform sex work in the presence of their child at the brothel. This situation promotes the women to approach Saheli as the last resort of keeping their child at the drop-in-centre. Saheli Sangh being the only organisation of the women, by the women and for the women in sex work, they could not deny the fact of providing this service to the other friends living in the same neighbourhood who suffer from same emotional and physical abuse.
It is to note that the children living with the mothers at the brothel are often vulnerable of being physically abused by their clients/customers. It is a known fact, a male child growing in the red light area, is often exposed from usage of vulgar language to becoming of a pimp. If a girl child is born she is treated as a wealth for the women at the brothel, from her early age, she is physically abused and is well versed about the whereabouts of her mother. These situations often have an adverse impact on the child psychology.
Taking these factors into account, Saheli with its own initiative started the day crèche in 2006. The women brought their children at the centre during the day and took along with them in the evening. This gave the mothers a secured place to perform sex work during the day, so that she could make earnings to support herself and the child. Consequently the awareness about the day crèche increased the enrolment of the children.
As one is well aware about the impacts of HIV/AIDS, we cannot hide the fact of being socially discriminated. There are still living experiences from the brothels where women with their HIV status are ex-communicated and driven out of the brothel along with their children. This situation with no roof makes the children more vulnerable of being abused. The living conditions at the brothel especially with the average size of the room and the frequency of the women in a compact size rooms provide inadequate space for their children. The presence of the child during the night with the mother inhibits the business of sex work. These are few conditions that often provoke the women to provide alternate secured place for the child. Keeping all these factors into account, Saheli Sangh with the little available human resource and the fund extended the working during the night.
Today the Day Crèche of Saheli Sangh is working a full-fledge Day and Night Crèche supported by the Community Kitchen for nutrition aspect and honorarium for the care takers.
Present Scenario:
The Day and Night Crèche do not have sufficient space where the children can play. The drop in centre of the organisation is being used as a day and night crèche. This has limited the space for the children to play and move around. Due to lack of sufficient funds, Saheli has not been able to support the children in educational programs. The volunteers have been participating in educating the children within the limited space available. The children at the day and night crèche prefer to play, fortunately through networking with various educational institutes, the children are escorted for recreation at every fortnight. Due to unavailability of funds, Saheli has not been able to support a private doctor for the crèche.
As there is growing awareness at the community level about the day and night crèche, the women in sex work prefer to admit their child at the crèche due to its locality being close to the habitation. This has increased the demand for the use of crèche by the women in sex work. Unfortunately we have not been able to support each woman to admit their child at the centre. Instead we refer them to various hostels and residential homes for long term basis.
Our experiences working with various residential homes, state these residential homes have their own norms which often do not fit into their criteria of being a child of a woman in sex work.
Current Activities:
1. Carry out paediatric health camp on six monthly basis.
2. Monthly health check-up by the government doctors.
3. After every fortnight, the weighing of the children and accordingly the diet and nutritional schedule for the particular child is prepared.
4. Every fortnight the children from the day and night crèche are taken out to various places within the city for an outing/excursion.
The Total no. of children present at the Day and Night Crèche are 22
1. Children during the day: 22
2. Children during the night: 21
Mothers pay Rs 400 on a monthly basis. Those mothers how are unable to pay the monthly charge are written of. The children above the age of 5 years are networked for hostel admission to various residential homes in Pune city. The HIV positive children are also provided ART facility from government hospitals and seek out for hostel admission at various residential homes.
Staffs/Volunteers Involved:
1. Day and Night Crèche In charge - 1
2. Caretakers
a) Day – 2
b) Night – 2
3. Documentation of the Crèche – 1
Future Activity Proposed.
1. Job Oriented Training Programmes for rescued girls and women – immediately Saheli is planning to start with training these girls as kinder garden teachers and caretakers for our own day and night crèche where children of women in sex work live.
2. Providing Educational Materials, clothes, toys, carpet, and basic supplementary medicines.
3. Provision of an adequate secured place for the children to play and live.
4. Referral and treatment to child psychologist/counsellor.
5. Provision of care taker for referral and escort to government clinics and hospitals.
6. Provision of non-formal education programme for the children.
7. Continuity of the ongoing activities.
8. Care and support to children living with HIV/AIDS.