DON BOSCO ASHALAYAM

Don Bosco Ashalayam is an organisation working with the street children and the young at risk. From very modest beginnings at Uttam Nagar, West Delhi, with 25 street children providing education and vocational training, Don Bosco Ashalayam today reaches out to more than 2000 children through its street contact, shelter, vocational and non-formal education programmes.
The Central Government of India, through the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has given Ashalayam the responsibility of running the Childline service in the West Zone of Delhi from 1988. This is an emergency help-line which is integrated with outreach and rescue service for children in need of care and protection. It strives to be a referral network for providing emergency assistance to children around the country.

Ashalayam comprises a number of services all integrated under the umbrella of the Salesians of Don Bosco and the Salesian Sisters. Central to its approach is Don Bosco’s Preventive System.
The Ashalayam Shelter Home is a rehabilitation centre with a capacity of 150 children. It offers children a clean and secure home away from a struggling existence for survival on the streets. The caring presence of Fathers, Brothers, Sisters along with professional and trained staff, gives these children an opportunity to relive their lost childhood. Ashalayam Shelter Home provides the child with an ov erall education to build his ir her future through formal and non-formal education and vocational training.

Asha Anubhav is the name for the total programme which comprises Asha Outreach, Asha Daan, Night Shelter, Non-formal education, Asha Placement, the Drug De-addiction Programme and Networking and referral services. Asha Anubhav is the Preventive System in action according to local needs and circumstances. It involves improved ways of contacting, restoring, referring children as well as teaching them. The Participatory Life Skills Enhancement Workshops, Creativity Workshops and other recreation programmes have helped bring about dramatic changes to children’s perceptions about self and others, their interpersonal relationships, attitude towards life, sex, morality.

Asha Outreach is an outreach programme for children who are living a life of neglect at the railway stations, bus terminals, religious places, parks and market areas around New Delhi. Staff members visit the railway station and bus terminal every day to help the children already there and who have newly arrived. At least 15 children a day arrive at New Delhi railway station. Asha Dan is a drop-in centre situated near the New Delhi railway station. The centre provides temporary shelter, medical care, counselling and education.

Childline West Zone, under Don Bosco Ashalayam covers around 139 slum clusters, 9 railway stations, 17 bus terminals and 17 vegetable markets. Each day it receives from 120-130 calls. It receives good support from police, other NGOs working in the region, Government hospitals and concerned citizens of West Delhi.