Monday 24th August

A child at Bandra

The slum at Bandra

A man sleeping off drugs while his children are on the bus

The man's son

...and his daughter

Having purchased some more footballs (Hopefully these will last) I was hopeful about having a good football session with the street kids this morning, despite the fact it was pouring with rain when I left home. Unfortunately, it was not to be. They had chosen this morning to do maintenance work on the park and so it was closed. Instead, Ramesh and some of the other boys decided to try and teach me some more Hindi with one of the Vision Rescue staff as a translator. It is always good to know the meaning to the words they are trying to get you to say. I was again offered lots of food by the kids, especially banana, and if you don't accept it is considered rude. I also had to do some more repairs on Manor's foot which he keeps cutting on stones. I think it will be easier to buy him a pair of shoes as he is rapidly getting through the plasters. During the rest of the morning, I was able to watch Manoj and Neethi teaching English reading (Phonics!) to the children. They are slowly getting there with the teaching and the children are starting to pick up on the sounds. After lunch, I travelled with the bus to MMRDA where I was informed about on family's current situation. They live in a slum house right in front of where the bus stops and today there was a man asleep outside the house. He is the father of the family and his two children, who are about 6 and 4, come on the bus every morning. They are lovely children and were the first ones to give me friendship bands back on friendship day . The mother is also there in the house. You can see the two children and the father in the photos above and it won't surprise you to know that the reason the father is asleep is because he is on drugs. He does not work and takes all the money that the mother earns and spends it on drugs. If she refuses to give him the money then he causes huge problems and can get violent. For this reason she gives him what he wants. Unfortunately, these people can never see a way out of the situation and so they just put up with it. There are no signs of abuse to the children which is a good thing but this could happen in the future and there is a fear that the son goes down the same route as his father. There may be a way that Vision Rescue can help by offering support to the family and rehabilitation to the father. Unfortunately, not all men are willing to be rehabilitated. I will try and get an update on the family later this week. I ran another teacher training session today where we put together some bus rules and talked about how the phonics and reward system was going. All the teachers seem more confident and they interact much more in the sessions than they did when I started back in May. I only have to more sessions left so I have asked them to think about how I can be of most use to them during the next week. Tomorrow I will be in the office first thing discussing work books and Christmas card printing so not sure whether there will be much to report.