Dear All,
Greetings!

The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen. Nice to express my happiness and achievement on the first successful relocation of a kid named – Shikandar.

It is my immense pleasure to share my experience with you all.
Government Reception Centre for Boys, near Nimhans, Bangalore is the place where we landed up searching for the same assignment we were carrying out in Chennai i.e., kids relocation activities.
The very first day of my visit to this place was a problem for me to understand the local dialect of the non-official members as it was Sunday, so no official staffs were there.
Next visit was with some of my colleagues on Saturday. We were been welcomed by the Superintendent and other official members when we introduced ourselves and told about the CS activities we were been carrying out. Eyes became warm and relaxed seeing the well condition and organised care and maintenance of the home, because then only I could realize the big difference between the two homes in Chennai and Bangalore. This place is far better than Chennai Govt Boys Home. Food, Clothing, Hygiene is really good which is being well provided by Bangalore Govt. Then, I felt it’s true to say, there is always room at the top! When asked for their need for the home, they told some of their big demands like – Ambulance, Basketball Court and some Kitchen Utensils for those kids. With my personal opinion, I didn’t want to start up any activity with such kind of major financial help… may be in long run, depends on funds! When we asked for the relocation activities, the procedures and process we felt pretty much organised and we were been told that they are also getting helped by some NGOs. We wanted to know in detail so; we decided to visit again.
Next visit, we found, there is only 1 probationary officer here, which ideally should have a count of 4 but for good, we found the teachers of the GRC Boys School also doing the counselling of kids and helping the probationary officer. In terms of relocation of kids inside state, it’s really going on good here as it is very fast and they have got a good network and they follow some good procedures like announcements, calls, personal or escorts visit to the respective place to do this job inside state. Then, when asked for outside state kids, they said, they do relocate them to their respective state govt homes after some months and if in case, there parents could identify the place and kids, then they do claim by undergoing some procedures as like in Chennai Govt Home. At the same time, we got to know about some Volunteers from St. Joseph’s who are taking up this activity in counselling of kids and relocation. Then, we felt our job ends here as it’s going very smooth and so felt relaxed. But, before concluding on anything, some of our volunteers wanted to visit this place for few more time and then decide on something.
So we made a move last weekend and could found that, the volunteers of St. Joseph’s college were just doing their case studies as part of their study by counselling the kids, as they are psychology students (that’s also plays very important role) which plays a different role from relocating the kids. I felt sometimes the statements were very contradictory from person to person, may be because of change in versions ;).
As per Mrs. Vasantha (Probationary Officer) and Mrs. Geetha Patil (Superintendent) words, the basic need of this place is STD facility in a phone because for the outside state kids, they are not able to contact there parents even after the kid give them the address details and contact information. This is because with their own expense from cell phone, which becomes too expensive to help all kids. So they are just being sent after few months to their respective state homes. And the process gets delayed.
Within these few visits, we met and chatted with few kids here and also collected some information about their family and place, they belong to. We also did a small Diwali celebration here by distributing snacks to these small kids.

We took the information of few kids. Amongst them, one guy is Shikandar, age 12 yrs from Delhi. This Diwali when Sanjay went home, he was been motivated by a keen desire to do something for Shikandar. He had to take some pain, but with the strong mental attitude he could find this guy’s home and finally, reached out the correct place. His father is a Rickshaw puller. His parents started crying on listening about their kid, at the same time so happy that they were not able to express their heartfelt gratitude to Sanjay. Now, some dealings and some paper works and the kid Shikandar is all set to home.

The probationary officer, Teachers and Superintendent are very happy to see this kind of help and want us to continue the same in future moreover, for some special cases for which they want to maintain separate record especially for our volunteers.

Two 2 kids’ relocation are still in progress.

There are lots of persons who directly or indirectly helped us in achieving our first stepping stone towards Bangalore CS activity, GRCB.

Special Thanks to Mukund for who ignited the spirit within me to take up this work here in Bangalore, and helped me in getting some volunteers.
Sincere Thanks to Mr. Sridhar who helped me identifying the correct address of GRCs in such a short span.
Thanks Veena, Regan, Manjunatha, Ravindran, Santosh, Roopa, for your time and “to be continued” support.
Hats off Sanjay for your good n’ great work Wish to see at earliest your first experience in kid relocation in Bangalore in our blog

– Susrita.