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| REHABILITATING THE CHILDREN ON THE MOVE : |
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| Street Presence / Befriending : |
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| Many factors make the children to runaway from the natural parents/guardians and they chose crowed spots in Madurai especially the transport terminals to hide themselves. In order to protect such children from the ignominious life and keep invested with their parental homes, NANBAN fan out into areas in the city such as : |
- Railway Junction
- Arapplayam Bus stand
- Matuthavani Integrated Bus stand
- Periyar City Bus stand
- Meenakshiamman Temple
- Children’s Park
- Thirupparankundram Railway station
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| The street educators spread out into these selected areas every day and spend about eight hours daily to identify children who had fled their homes and come to the city in search of a new life. These street educators establish friendly contact with children who had fled their homes due to the above said factors. The so identified children are put into dialogues and persuaded to return to their homes by making them aware of the dangers and hazards of life in the streets of the city. |
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| Shelter Services |
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| Transit (emergency) shelters for children are for the transient wards – straying, missing, abandoned children in distress – those on the streets and of the streets, encountered by the NANBAN street educators or referred to NANBAN by the stakeholders. The children’s immediate needs are addressed with food, bed, shower, toilet, washing clothes and opportunities for relaxation and recuperation. |
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| Counseling Sessions |
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| There are a wide range of issues and factors that affect the children and make them to come to the streets. Unfortunately abuses and maltreatments are the most serious and require urgent attention. Sometimes children find it difficult to express their worries which mean that problems can be left unresolved and undetected. It is therefore necessary to enable the child with friendly environment and providing them with adequate counseling under the philosophy of unconditional acceptance of a child as a whole person, who has rights and who is entitled to active listening. |
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| Placements |
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| A child would stay for a few hours, overnight or few days while all appropriate alternate ‘placements’ to the child’s aptitudes are discerned. In the first instance children naturally belong to their biological parents, who are primarily responsible for implementing the rights of their children. This whole step by step process would begin with street contact. Only in cases where reconciliation and reunion between a child and its parents/guardians fails to materialize, or where there exists no identified parent/guardian, children are offered alternate placements such as job, short stay homes, foster shelters at NANBAN, networking NGOs having shelter facilities, educational and institutional placements, child line and government homes which the children choose as ideal for their development and growth in ways they feel conducive for them to merge into the main stream of society in due course. |
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| Follow ups |
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| After a child is restored with his/her family NANBAN wants to ensure whether the child is safe and protected. All Home placed children are contacted through letters and phone calls once in three months. In the case of children in the nearby areas, workers go to their homes personally and make inquiries. |
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