Today I want to show you some portraits I made of a few children. Beautiful little people living in a slum in Bangalore. Through my volunteer work at ANU, I know their mothers and I know a bit about their background. It is amazing that these children have such bright smiles and such lust for life, but thank God they do!
Brothers and sisters, reunited for the school holidays. Only the youngest still lives with their mother, the other 3 go to a boarding school in Chennai. That sounds horrible, but it is the best thing for these children, especially for the boys. This way they get a good education and (maybe even more importantly) they are away from the slum and the bad influences....
The majority of the children in the slum have unemployed, alcoholic fathers. Their mothers get beaten up on a regular basis and food is not always available... I often wonder how these circumstances will influence them. Will they do everything in their power to better their lives or will they stay in a similar situation as they grow up in now?
It is heart breaking just to think about it. I wish I could do something to make it possible for them to get out of the slum, get a good education and earn a proper living....but where to start and what to do? Even though it is the most simple and obvious solution, throwing money at this problem is not going to fix it I am sure.
Like I mentioned before in one of my blogs, I just hope that my little contribution by teaching their mothers English and helping them to keep their business running will lead to a better life for them.
In the mean time we will continue with summer school and hope a large group of children will have some good memories of a fun filled summer with some silly aunties.
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