By Shana Greene | Executive Director of Village Volunteers
Dear friends of New Light,
In order to explain how donations are being used, we feel it important to reiterate the history and current work at New Light. New light is is a registered public charitable trust operating from the terrace of a temple deep inside the red-light district of Kalighat, Kolkata that offers comprehensive community development services.
The shelter project provides the children of sex workers a safe haven,particularly in the evening hours when streets are the most dangerous and the mothers are working. Initiated by caring for 9 children in the year 2000, the programs of New Light today serves more than 250 children of various age groups.
The services offered by New Light includes education, healthcare, nutritional support, recreational facility, HIV/AIDS care, income generation opportunities for the women and residential care for many of the young children from the community. Legal aid and advocacy against gender based violence are other thrust areas of New Light`s operation.
Over the years New Light has set up multiple facilities to cater to the needs of children and young adults at risk. New Light Shelter for children not only from the red light district but from the Dalit community with the children of municipal crematorium and sanitation workers who have traditionally been treated as untouchables. All of these children live in equally precarious circumstances, exposed to violence and subjected to discrimination and sociial stigman. In New Light, the children receive support to continue formal education, remideial education, nutrition and healthcare.
The residentail facility, the Soma Memorial Girls Home is located un the southern fringe of the city to protect adolescent girls at rish. Thrity-seven girls from 6-18 years reside and are cared for by dedicated staff recruited within the community. There is a boys home set up in 2014 with the same dedication to boys who were vulnerable in the influences of the red light district. Outstanding performances in school and in the arts is normal for children from challenging backgrounds who are given a chance their parents didn't have in life. There is also an adult home for students taking their education to the next level.
Last but not least is Operation Starfish. They meet the growing demands to strenghten care for toddlers who needs are laregly neglected. The preschool follows traditional as well as Montessori system of teaching and accommodates around 50 children up to five years of age to stimulate and nuture.
Explaining the important work of New Light is our way of saying thank you and to demonstrate the ongoing need to break the chain of oppression by providing children a way forward.
Thank you,
Shana Greene
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