Project Details: Surakshit Bachpan: Protecting Children from slipping into street life at Railway Station in India.

Objective-1- To protect 400 children arriving alone and at risk at the Railway Station and to sustainably rehabilitate 360 of them with families and 40 with long-term care homes during 1 year of intervention & Develop Railway Station as a model station on Child Protection & Safeguarding

Expected Outcome-

• 400 children who arrived alone, at-risk and in need of care and protection are protected at the railway station among those 360 children are restored to families and 40 are referred to long care with 1 year of intervention.
• 360 reunified children staying with their families and other childcare institutions are systematically followed up and provided post-restoration and rehabilitation which includes counselling, school admission, linkage to vocational training and sponsorship/ scholarship schemes.
• 300 Railway stakeholders (GRP, RPF and station level officials) are trained and sensitized on child protection, SOP of railways and Child rights.
• 12 Child Help Group (CHG) meetings will be conducted under the leadership of the Station Master. Proceedings of the same will be shared with the ADRM office at Railway for further guidance and support. Action taken review will be carried out during the quarterly review.
• 5000 passengers are sensitized through campaigns and awareness programs at railway stations within 1 year of intervention.Key Activities:

• Activity 1: 24hr outreach at the railway station- RCI will conduct 24 x 7 outreach at the railway station to provide care and protection to children arriving at the station. Our team will collaborate with the Government Railway Police (GRP) and Railway Protection Force (RPF) and other primary stakeholders of railways to ensure that no child faces any kind of abuse and exploitation at the railway station.
• Activity 2: 24x7 Child Help Desk (CHD)- RCI has set up a Child Help Desk which acts as a resource center for information that the child needs and can use. It is manned with adequate human resources having the requisite skill to outreach children immediately and can cater to their immediate needs counseling, food, water, medical support, and reunification with parents.  This CHD will be the focal point for coordinating the child protection work around the railway station. 
• Activity 3: Restoration of children with families or refer them to long-term care- Child Welfare Officer will work with every child and his family to facilitate the smooth restoration process. This process will include family tracing, discussion with family members, identifying the problem which pushed the child out of home, and working to address the same. Families are supported to fulfill the statutory process for restoration. 
• Activity 4: Post-restoration support to reunified children- RCI will provide post-restoration support to the reunified children and their families for 12-18 months.
• Activity 5: Training and Sensitization of railway authorities, RPF, GRP, and the wider station community.
• Activity 6: Facilitation of the functioning of the Child Help Group (CHG) at the Railway stations.
• Activity 7: Awareness Campaign at the railway stations

Key Activities:

• Activity 1: 24hr outreach at the railway station- RCI will conduct 24 x 7 outreach at the railway station to provide care and protection to children arriving at the station. Our team will collaborate with the Government Railway Police (GRP) and Railway Protection Force (RPF) and other primary stakeholders of railways to ensure that no child faces any kind of abuse and exploitation at the railway station.
• Activity 2: 24x7 Child Help Desk (CHD)- RCI has set up a Child Help Desk which acts as a resource center for information that the child needs and can use. It is manned with adequate human resources having the requisite skill to outreach children immediately and can cater to their immediate needs counseling, food, water, medical support, and reunification with parents.  This CHD will be the focal point for coordinating the child protection work around the railway station. 
• Activity 3: Restoration of children with families or refer them to long-term care- Child Welfare Officer will work with every child and his family to facilitate the smooth restoration process. This process will include family tracing, discussion with family members, identifying the problem which pushed the child out of home, and working to address the same. Families are supported to fulfill the statutory process for restoration. 
• Activity 4: Post-restoration support to reunified children- RCI will provide post-restoration support to the reunified children and their families for 12-18 months.
• Activity 5: Training and Sensitization of railway authorities, RPF, GRP, and the wider station community.
• Activity 6: Facilitation of the functioning of the Child Help Group (CHG) at the Railway stations.
• Activity 7: Awareness Campaign at the railway stations

Context & Rationale:

India is home to 472 million children, who are below the age of 18 years and comprise 39 percent of the country’s total population. Out of the 128.5 million children residing in urban areas, close to 7.8 million children between the ages of 0 to six years still live in conditions of poverty and backwardness in informal settlements Children in India experience problems like neglect, abuse, illiteracy, malnutrition, child labor, child marriage, and criminal acts. These factors are primarily responsible for leading to detrimental effects on their lives. To make their living worthwhile and utilize their skills and abilities for the country's development, it is necessary to make provision for progression opportunities.

A UNICEF study in 2012 revealed that 400,000 children survive in the harsh environment of India’s streets. Every 5 minutes, a child arrives alone at a railway station in India. Railway platforms see a high footfall of at-risk children who get separated from their families because of various reasons. A survey conducted by RCI in 2015 indicates that 121,860 children are arriving at and around 32 stations across all 16 Railway Zones every year.

Children who are running away from their homes for various reasons are under a high-risk category. The longer a child or adolescent is missing, the greater the risk they face. When children leave their homes based on the pressure they face or under the influence of peer group, he/she becomes highly vulnerable to torture, exploitation and trafficking. The CHILDLINE report on missing children states that children are often kidnapped or trafficked for prostitution, organ donations, employment, and similar purposes. 

The problem of children away from home is too complex to be analyzed because of the multitude of factors — social, economic, institutional and administrative — responsible for pushing children out of their homes. There are at least three stages involved in restoring the runaway children namely, rescuing them and preventing them from risks; the process of reuniting the children with their families or putting them under long-term care if there is no proper family and thirdly following them up to see that the conditions that were responsible for children leaving home do not occur again, implying family and community strengthening programs.

Railway Children India (RCI) has been implementing station-level intervention at multiple Railway Stations for 25 years and has been able to protect & restore more than 100000 children with families.  The project will focus on strengthening Child Protection work at Railway Stations and creating Model Child-Friendly Stations. RCI continues to work in collaboration with every stakeholder to bring sustainable change in the life of vulnerable children by building the resilience of their families to cope with the adverse impact of the pandemic – COVID 19. This proposal is to seek support to strengthen and sustain the initiatives of RCI towards the protection of children arriving at the Railway Station and reuniting children with their families to ensure the continuation of education. ­­

1. 24x7 Child Help Desk at Railway Station along with outreach activities to protect and restore children
2. Being a Nodal Agency for Indian Railways, we extensively provide training and orientation on child protection and safeguarding of Railway Stakeholder
3. Safe and Successful Restoration of Children with families and family strengthening intervention

a) Introduction

Railway Children India’s (RCI) vision is “a world where no child ever has to live on the street”. To make this happen we work at transport terminals and high-risk communities to identify and protect children at risk thereby preventing them from slipping into street life. RCI is a section 8 not-for-profit company registered in the year 2013. RCI currently works at 6 railway stations, 1 bus terminal and 9 slum communities across 6 states protecting 7000 children annually. RCI is a resource agency for Indian Railways to train and sensitize their personnel on child protection across the nation and played a significant role in the development of the first-ever guideline for the protection of children in contact with railway stations and Indian Railways standard operating procedures on child protection.

 b) Impact (2015- March 2022):

• 20337 children were protected and prevented from slipping into street life.
• 90% of children are safely restored with families and long-term care institutions.
• Supported 18000 children across 30 slum communities with Covid 19 relief services.
• 42184 railway officials trained on how to protect children & create child-friendly stations. 
• Over 11 lakh railway passengers are sensitized to child protection.