Over 11 million children live on the streets of India.
Children running away from abuse, violence and poverty use India's extensive railway network to get to the cities, where they hope to find a better life.
Thousands of children arrive at India’s vast, chaotic railway stations and find themselves lost, alone and scared, with no idea where to go or what to do.
Their dreams brutally shattered, they end up living on the platforms.
In India, we work at major railway stations where our outreach workers race to reach vulnerable children as soon as they arrive on the platform and intervene before an abuser can. We provide food, shelter, safety and support, but our work doesn’t stop there. We make sure things change so children never go back to the streets.
We try to reunite children with their families and if that’s not possible, we find them long-term solutions like placement in care homes. We work with local communities to make children on the streets more visible and we support those communities to protect children and prevent them from being ignored, abused or passed by. We also lobby and collaborate with governments to get the policy changes that keep children safe and off the streets forever.