Help us send more child beggars to school in Bihar

Hi everyone,

I am Naresh Sir in charge of our education programmes here at People First.

I really want to thank you for your support for our anti child begging campaign .

We were able to raise thanks of course to your kind donations enough funds to put in a place a robust and effective programme to help tackle the problem of child beggars in Bodhgaya.

One important aspect of the programme is that it was not just us alone. We worked coordinating the local police, labour department, and civil society to send out a strong message that child begging will not be tolerated in Bodhgaya. We worked hard to place children in schools or provide vocational training for them, whilst at the same time smashing organised child begging in the area.

The result is a drastic reduction in child begging in the local area. Due to extreme poverty we can never say that the problem is completely solved, and we will continue our efforts. But we can say with your help we have made a huge difference, and we thank you for your important support.

Here’s what Pradeep has to say, a child beggar aged nine (we have changed his name only)

“The men came to my village looking for young boys to beg every winter season, they would give a little money to my parents and take me to the town, there we changed into beggar rags. They also wanted girls with babies, young girls and there were sometimes over 30 of us.  We used to make a lot of money, maybe one or two thousand rupees per day each but I never counted it, I just handed it in and got 200 rupees a day. Sometimes they would beat us if we did not make enough money.

Then one time the police and some social workers raided the room we went to in a rundown hotel early in the morning when we were getting ready for a days begging.

We were taken to Rescue Junction given a good meal, our parents were called and there was someone from the education department. Over the next six months we were visited at our village by staff from Rescue Junction, I settled into school and I was given help for books and uniforms now my parents understand and are pleased I am getting an education.

I never saw those beggar agents ever again”

Thank you for your help.

Please see our new website at www.peoplefirstbihar.org

And don’t forget Bonus Day on June 15^th!

Naresh

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