Today all schools in the city are busy celebrating Children's day. Fancy dress competitions and various entertainment programmes are being hosted to cheer up children. To the contrary, hundreds of children belonging to the streets are busy entertaining the adults by lashing their whips on their body, walking on unsafe ropes, performing summersaults and doing all that they can to earn a few pennies.
Left with no other option, as their parents are either rag pickers or they beg on the streets and in public places in order to support their family. Do they know who is Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and that today is celebrated as Children's day?
However, memories of yesterday‘s magnanimous function will remain evergreen in the hearts of the kids and their parents. As an exclusive Children's day event was hosted for them by P. Mahendran, Founder of Coimbatore-based Eera Nenjam Trust. An NGO which works tirelessly towards supporting the downtrodden and languished.
Yesterday at their home for senior citizens in RS Puram, Children’s Day was celebrated with these kids from streets. Here's what Mahendran shared with us 'Kids from well to do families go to private schools and celebrate this day with their teachers and friends. However, no one cares for the kids who are born to rag pickers and the ones who are forced to beg. Their plight is worse than that of the children who are orphaned. Thus, we celebrated Children’s Day with such children and we are happy that through our efforts we were able to bring a smile on their faces. It is a day that the kids and their families will cherish for a life-time.”
More than 40 such children were invited to the shelter home premises of this NGO in R S Puram. The celebrations began with sweets, new clothes and gifts being distributed to the children. This was followed by the children being entertained by a team of volunteers. It was heart-warming to witness children who entertained the public on all days being entertained on Children’s Day, a day that is dedicated to children.
Moved by the celebrations, our journalist from SimpliCity asked one of the parents, Chinna Kannaiya, a street drummer on the reasons for not schooling their kids, in a jiffy came the reply, “We really want our children to stay away from our jobs. Close to 35 families like us do not have proper identity cards. A few of our children have pursued studies till 10th standard but could not pursue higher studies as they don't have a caste certificate. Till date, Government has not issued any caste or community certificate to people like us. Our children are denied admission in colleges as they do not possess the required certificates. This has de-motivated our kids and forced them into the same begging jobs.
We have made several appeals to the respective officials to issue us our community and caste certificate. However, nothing has been done in this regard so far. This is a big hindrance for us as we are unable to even send our children to an educational institution and avail other Government benefits and schemes. We are hoping that the Government takes note of this and issues people like us our caste and community certificate so that we too have our identity in the society.”
"Hopefully for the next Children's Day our kids can look ahead for a brighter future" was the overall mood amidst the joyous celebrations they could take part in.