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Dropouts
This month we had to advise two sponsors that the children they were sponsoring had dropped out of school, as their father had taken his family to Hyderabad where he hoped to find work. Whilst we can admire the man for wanting his family around him, he could be sadly mistaken if he thinks the streets of the big cities are paved with gold.
To demonstrate the problem in the big cities, the BBC ran a story recently of a mother in West Bengal who was turned out of her house with three daughters aged 10, 8 and 4. They were living on the platform of a railway station. It was claimed that the woman had sold her daughters for �2 as she could not feed them. The children were rescued, but in another interview the mother said I could never sell my children, I could never do such a thing. I gave them to good families where they would be well looked after. She went on to say that she would give them away again to try and give them a better life. It is hard to imagine the mental pain the mother would be going through to do such a thing, particularly as trafficking of children is common in the poor parts of India. This story has at least some good news, which is that the mother and daughters are together again in a home, see BBC link.
I relate these stories, partly because I am personally moved by them, and also to demonstrate how important projects like Mala are in giving children a better start in life and how grateful we are to our sponsors and supporters, without whose financial support we would not exist.
We have a new film of our schools and if anyone would like a copy, please let us know and we will send a CD.
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