There is no place like home.....
 
   

FAQs

 

  1. What does SATHI do?

SATHI is an India-based NGO working with street children and majorly focuses on run-away children and their de-addiction.

  1. What are the biggest strengths of SATHI?
  1. Tracing the address of any “missing or run away child” anywhere in India
  2. De-addicting the children.
  1. What is Home placement or Repatriation?

When a runaway child or child from street is sent back home, it is termed as “HP”(ie: Home placement or “Repatriation”.

  1. Why child leaves home? Who is responsible?

Children leave home for varied reasons like: poverty, alcoholism in the family, abuse, problem at school, bad habits, habituated to street life. The reasons can be an “emotional need” or a “materialistic want”.  Parents or the family may not always be always responsible.

  1. How do you rescue children from the platform?

We have full time employees covering the major Railway platforms across India from early morning to midnight. These staff members counsel the children on the platform and bring them to the shelter.

  1. What happens at the shelter?

At the shelter, there is are full time staff members who take care of the child’s basic needs like:  Food and Clothing.

Later we start counseling the child and elicit information from him as to why he is on street / platform.

Then on a case to case basis, we decide if the child can be home placed or not. If yes, we send him back home else refer him to other NGO for his education or vocational training.

  1. How do you counsel the children?

At the shelter, we have employees who are trained if  counseling children. In case of any concern in a particular child’s case, we refer them to “Professional Child Counselors or  Child Psychiatrists”

  1. After home placement, do you follow up the child?

Yes. We follow up with the child on a minimum quarterly basis for a period of one year. Though we agree that we need to do it much more religiously.

  1. If any child cannot be home placed what do you do?

We refer him to other NGO  or Government Observation Home for his education or vocational training.

  1. After home placement, do you  provide any support, if required?

Yes. This is done on a case-to-case basis. It can be education or medical support. IN exceptional cases we more support to the family.

  1. What kind of children will attend the “HP or De-addiction camp”

The following category of children are referred to “HP or De-addiction camp”:-

      1. Child who has had a long duration on the platform  or
      2. Child not ready to go back home  or
      3. Child who is highly addicted   or
      4. Child who shows deviant behavior
  1. How do you rescue children from the street?

We identify critical areas on the cities or towns where children get accumulated.
Ex: Temple at Tirumala, MG Road at Bangalore, Necklace road at Hyderabad, etc.

  1. What do you do with slum  children?

We do camps in slums  in order to:

      1. To de-addict children  or
      2. Remove deviant behavior   or
      3. Strengthen relationship with parents / family
  1. What is the success rate in your camps?

It is around 70 To 75 %

  1. Does SATHI receive funds from the government?

No.

  1. How does SATHI raise funds?

SATHI approaches organizations and funding agencies. As of now, SRTT (Sir Ratan Tata Trust), Infosys Foundation  and Everychild, a UK funding based agency are majorly SATHI’s source of funds.

Any contributions from individuals are most welcome.

  1. What strategy did SATHI use to spread across India?

In order to spread its work to most of the places in India, SATHI collaborates thru “Partnerships” with the local  NGOs in each place.

  1. In what way do you help the partners?

We help the partners in the following way:-

      1. Teach the concept of “home placement”
      2. Teach the concept of de-addiction camps
      3. Give very small amount of funds to run the program
      4. Help them to become independent, in case it is a small NGO
  1. I want to know where are the locations of SATHI’s offices across India?

SATHI works through partners across India. Please find the details in the following link:  List of partners

  1. I want to touch base with SATHI. Please give me the details.

You can write to us at : pramodkulkarni@vsnl.net

Also, please note that the following link will give you more contact info: Contact Us

  1. I would like to view your Annual Report to know how you raise and disburse resources?

Kindly refer to the last pages in the annual report. The following is the link for the annual report: Annual Report 2005 - 2006

  1. Does SATHI deal only with boys?

SATHI’s deals with children in the age group of  0-18 years. It’s major work is with boys. But, it has successfully handled few projects of rescuing and repatriating girls.

  1. Are the rights of children taken care of in the whole process?
  2. Yes. SATHI never forces anything on the child. Keeping the child’s interests and rights in mind, all decisions are taken.
  1. What is the cost of helping one child?
    Roughly Rs. 2000.
  1. Can you work at the root of the problem and reduce children running away?

This is a grey area. Our experience says that this problem cannot be rooted away completely. We do give some awareness session in slum areas , but it is to be noted that it is not only children from slums that run away from home. Even children from well-bred families run away from home. To tackle this issue in much better way, SATHI is seeking the help of “Child Mental Health Practitioners” from premier institutes like: NIMHANS, etc.

  1. Child once home placed will get in to the same problem that pushed the child out of home. So, why home place?
    Before home placement, a thorough analysis of the cause of the child’s running away from home is done. If there is dearth at the family’s end, the family is counseled till they gets to know their error. If there is dearth at the child’s end, he is counseled till he gets to know his error. After this, there is a face to face meeting
  1. Will the child stay back at home?

The answer to this is both Yes and No. We do follow ups regularly and in more than 70% of the cases, the children were at home and were taken good care of. In the balance 30 % of the cases, the child left home. This might be due to the inherent nature of the child or the environment in which he is.

  1. Will child grow well, back home?

This is a grey area. We home place the child after talking to the family and only when we are convinced of the child’s well being. In more than 70% of the cases whom we followed up, the children were at home and were taken good care of.

  1. Will parents accept the child back? Can they be believed when they say " we wish to take the child back and look after well". What is the guarantee of their change?

This is again a grey area. As per our regular surveys, in more than 70 % of the cases, the child stays back at home and is taken care of well. The underlying premise to this belief is the strongly family culture in India.

  1. What are the other rehabilitation methods? How do these other methods compare with home placement strategy?

The other rehabilitation methods are: referring children to governmental or non –governmental institutions. But their efficacy has never been empirically tested.

  1. Does the law allow this work?
    Yes. It is under the purview of “Juvenile Justice Act of 2000”
  1. This is the job of Govt. Why SATHI does this work?

Government has not been very successful in dong this. SATHI apart from working independently, also assists the Government  Children’s home staff to repatriate children. This is being done in Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad

  1. For de addiction , do you give any medication?
    No. The de-addiction is by way of orientation camps and the camp methodology has been designed and vetted by Dr. Sekhar Seshadri, Head-Dept. of Child Psychiatry, NIMHANS, Bangalore.
  1. De addiction takes several months and need professional counseling. How does SATHI manage this?
    Research and specialists says that de-addiction in children is lot easier than adults. The de-addiction is by way of orientation camps where in, in the camp,  a caring relationship is formed between the teacher and the child. Under the aegis of this “caring relationship”, the child readily agrees to what ever the teacher says and teaches and this continues even after the child goes back from the camp.

In very few cases, where the child is very highly addicted to substances, they are referred to professionals like: Child Psychiatrists, NIMHANS, etc.