Episode 2 of “A smile in the backpack” by Ana Duato y María Bernardeau.

Ana and María’s journey progresses. In this chapter, the role of education as a key tool to break the vicious cycle of poverty and human trafficking is the highlight.

Also in this chapter, Ana Duato and María Bernardeau meet Jaume Sanllorente in person, the founder and General Director of Mumbai Smiles. With him they visit one of the preschools that we promote in the most disadvantaged communities in Mumbai, in this case Ccheda Nagar. Numerous families live there, crowded together, in very precarious conditions, without access to drinking water or electricity. Ana and María begin to understand how difficult it is to have to overcome the enormous obstacle of being born in an environment of social exclusion and the risks that entails.

The day begins with a visit to one of the preschools where Mumbai Smiles works: Shivajirao Shendge, in the Govandi community. A neighborhood populated by hundreds of families who have emigrated to Mumbai in search of better opportunities and yet, as is the case in Ccheda Nagar, it is a high-risk environment for boys and girls, who can easily be recruited for human trafficking and to be exploited in some of the worst forms of work. They will also learn about the problems of accessing a basic right such as education.

The vlog series “A smile in the backpack” delves into a problem, human trafficking, that the actress Ana Duato and her daughter María Bernardeau have seen with their own eyes and tell us about it in the first person.