Presentation
During the nineties, Pondicherry, like many cities around the world, became a place where many children and teenagers are in danger. They had fled domestic violence or they were rejected by families too poor to support them or they ran away, lured by the mirage of the city and the hope of a good life. Often their parents are themselves living on the pavements of the city’s roads.
Left to themselves without protection, these children live, doing odd jobs (cycle-pushers, ”coolies”, waiters in small restaurants etc), exploited and without any hope of a better life. They are easy prey, from a very young age, for the followers of sex tourism: rape, prostitution, drugs or alcohol addiction. Pimping is a frequent risk and there is indifference from the rest of the society. The older boys, who experienced the risks of life in the streets, often corrupt the younger ones... and the cycle continues.
For many years, Volontariat wanted to take some action for street children, but lacked an appropriate place for a programme.
Then, one day, an opportunity arose: a person whose family was from Pondicherry lived in Toulouse and had no intention of returning to India. He offered to donate a vacant land inside the city, which he had inherited from his family. The condition was that Volontariat uses it only for the benefit of children. So we started the program Souriya (Sun in Sanskrit) near the railway station in Pondicherry, as a home, welcoming street children, day and night.
Very quickly there were many boys, but their proximity led to promiscuity between the older and younger boys. This was a determining factor for the Volontariat to segregate the groups and place the young boys at Tuttipakkam farm, starting the program Nila Illam (Nila: Moon in Sanskrit).
A part of the Souriya building houses a day crèche for about thirty infants and very young children, whose parents are poor and live mostly on the roadside pavements of the city.
