On a summer day in 2012, Leena and her sister Teena took the children from the Children’s Care Center on a special excursion to picnic and play in a park in Vijayawada, two hours away. Outside the gates of the park she noticed many unsupervised children playing and scavenging for food in a garbage heap along a busy road. Leena asked the children to take her to their homes. There she discovered very destitute people living in an overcrowded slum of tents along the railroad tracks.
Leena continued to visit these people once a month, providing them friendship, mosquito nets, bathing soaps, etc. Leena realized that the children were playing in the streets unsupervised after school for three hours while their parents worked in the nearby fruit and vegetable markets. This placed the children in significant danger of abduction into the sex trade. So Leena was moved to begin an after-school program for the children who lived in this slum, hiring a tutor to help with schoolwork, provide other supervised activities and most importantly, provide safety until their parents returned home.
One year later, fire tragically swept through the area and destroyed all the homes. ServeTrust was there providing sacks of basic necessities. The government moved the occupants to an apartment building in another part of town. Today, ServeTrust continues the after-school program in that location in two small apartments. About 70 + children participate in the program.
Financial support is needed to provide:
– Salaries for 4 tutors
– The salary for one sewing teacher. Five children participate in this training.
– A monthly supply of rice and lentils and medication as needed for the children and their families.