Unemployment . The parents have no proper job to look after the family.

Family Problems They come from large families, so their parents often do not have the means to feed them properly. Many of the fathers abuse alcohol, which leads to constant fights in the house verbal and physical. Work The children have to do lot of domestic works like fetching water from the public water taps, queuing for cooking oil, running errands for people to get a little money

Living Conditions, The living conditions are very unhygeinic, one small room with no proper light or ventilation, with up to ten people living in it. In some houses there is no electricity. Nutrition No proper food, due lack of money.most children do not get enough food to eat so they are malnourished and even brain damaged

Money Problems Borrowing money, in times of serious illness they are desperate for saving their child and so they fall prey to moneylenders and then get caught in the web and this leads to more misery.

Health Problems. Due to lack of sanitation and lack of proper food they fall sick often What can we do to help these children ? Being from Calcutta and spending lot of time with these people as friends and as a teacher I always felt that I must do something to help these people to come out of their misery. It is very difficult to explain to someone, the daily misery of these people unless you have experienced it yourself. The tired weary face of a father or a mother after a day’s work will tell you a lot

What work do the parents of these children do?

They may be

• Rickshaw pullers
• Vegetable sellers
• Taxi drivers
• Truck drivers
• Coolies in wholesale markets
• Servants
• Helpers in shops , garages, restaurants

Their income is very meagre.

Since these people are poor they are voiceless. They are exploited by other people as well as looked down on. Most of the time they live in fear, fear of being thrown out of the slums or little hovels they live in, or being accused of being thieves or being involved in prostitution Some children have no father the mother’s work very hard to look after the children.