“Life in the streets is the outcome of [a] perverse combination of factors: the situation at home becoming too unbearable and the appeal and freedom found in the streets becoming too enticing to be ignored.”

Hundreds of children run away from homes every day. The reason could be as trivial as playing truant from school or even romanticizing the journey like the movies to ‘make it big in the city’ and only in few cases the reason could be as grave as physical abuse or extreme poverty.
 More than 30 new children arrive on the platform every day at CST Mumbai alone!

Some of these runaways hop into trains to flee, mindless of the dangers lurking in the platforms and the streets.  

Soon they adapt to their surroundings; often after being pushed around before being accepted in the ‘gang.’ They may even find a source of income through scavenging sweeping or begging. The vagaries of platform life suck them into a vortex and they succumb to addiction, disease and criminal influences. The platform becomes their home.
The platform child never grows up…..he just ages……

There is a misnomer that the platform children are either abandoned or from wrecked homes. This may not be true. Most of the children flee from home without a thought and cannot retract their actions either because of no money or fear or some are even lost. Parents often are desperately searching for the ‘lost’ child. There is no one more vulnerable than a lost child and no one more distraught than its parents. Hence, SATHI attempts to re-unite the run away child with his family. “There is no place like home” is the fundamental belief of SATHI (Society for Assistance to Children in Difficult Situation).

SATHI’s outreach staffs are present on the platform. They persuade and convince the children on the platform to come to the shelter. The staffs counsel the child. If the child agrees to go back home, SATHI traces his parents, calls the parents to shelter, counsels the parents and reunites the family. This ‘home placement’ is SATHI’s core focus. The joyful reunion of the child and the family restores SATHI’s faith repatriating the children. The Railway police, the Railway officers, the vendors on platform, the state police, NGOs, Child lines, Child welfare committees and many people help SATHI in rescuing these children and saving them from the dangers of street life.