Tara Mobile Creche

The construction industry is the second largest employer in the country, but the workers who toil ceaselessly to build modern India are virtually invisible.

They work long hours and have no access to proper housing, sanitation, electricity or even water. While the parents change the skyline of the cities, the children are left to fend for themselves amidst piles of rubble and construction material. By the time they are five or six, they are burdened with a whole range of demanding chores including looking after their younger siblings. They have no access to schooling, health care and above all to a childhood. It is this invisible child of invisible parents whom Mobile Crèches reaches out to with these goals:

• To provide a safe environment on the hazardous construction sites, for children between the ages of 0 to 15

• To provide preventive and curative health care and nutrition

• To encourage the children’s creative skills

• To initiate the children into the mainstream of education and give them joyful learning opportunities

• To prevent child labour

 Mobile Crèches came into being on a crowded construction site in Delhi in 1969. Growing from that one original location, the organization today covers 5,000 children in 60 centres in Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune. At each site, a day care centre is built adjacent to the construction site amidst the tin shacks that house the workers and their families. The education curriculum is aimed not only at literacy but also on orienting the child towards basic health habits. Language and concepts are developed through various monthly projects, story telling, dramatics and games. The childcare workers are health care workers, teachers, animators, friends and substitutes for mothers all rolled into one.

 http://www.mobilecreches.org/