“I was a child labour. But LSE returned my childhood” – Poorvi (Anonymous Hero)

12 year old Poorvi (name changed to protect identity) lives in the Chandivali area of Mumbai. A family of five, including her parents and younger brother and sister, Poorvi’s family income is just Rs.3000 per month and seeing a drunken father and domestic violence is part of her daily life, unfortunately so.

Last year, Poorvi came to know about the Life Skills Empowerment (LSE) program of Mumbai Smiles during our mobilization phase and was enrolled into it. A diligent and regular student, Poorvi was regular in her studies, came for the LSE sessions regularly and after going back home, not only helped her mother with household chores but also took care of her younger siblings, before going to sleep. However, one week into the sessions and her attendance at the session started declining and she became extremely irregular. This was a cause of worry for the animator (the tutor at the sessions), Prafullata. And with her intervention, came to the fore a very sad and disturbing reason for Poorvi’s absence from the sessions.

Image Credit: upi.com : For representational purpose only.

A few weeks earlier, Poorvi’s mother, who bears the entire financial responsibility of the family of five, had taken a loan of Rs. 50,000 from someone in her community for home, education and health expenses and was unable to repay it on time. This was affecting the house a lot and that is when Poorvi, took up a job at a local florist stall where she started working from 2-9.30 pm everyday for the income of Rs. 50 per month only! These 50 rupees per day was helping Poorvi’s mother to repay the loan, for which her mother was also shelling out a huge chunk of her income as well. Unfortunately, due the extremely poor conditions of the house, Poorvi’s mother was adamant on not ready to let Poorvi quit this job even though this was severely affecting her education and life since she was trying to juggle studies, job and household responsibilities, at the tender age of 12! And even though Prafullata tried to reason with her mother, it had an adverse effect and Poorvi got shouted at for sharing home problems with outsiders.

Now, Prafullata, along with the support of the LSE project team, intervened sternly and explained to Poorvi’s mother about the Child Protection laws of the country that condemns Child Labour and forbids children under the age of 14 years from working and that anyone who encourages this shall be punishable by law. This brought about some perspective in Poorvi’s mother’s thoughts. Moreover she got worried that if she had to go to jail, then who would take care of her three children, especially with a drunk father at home who is prone to beating others around him. And she finally agreed to let Poorvi quit the job.

Today, Poorvi is fully concentrating on her studies and is happy. “I was a child labour and thanks to LSE and Prafullata Didi, I have got my childhood back. It is financially difficult at home but we are managing. In fact I am now again regular in school and LSE sessions and I’ve understood how important Education is in life! I have learnt so many other new things from LSE sessions and I keep sharing them with my family and friends too! I have realised that life-decisions cannot be taken emotionally in haste but we need to have a practical lookout towards life too. And I thank LSE for this.”

We really hope that Poorvi never has to face such situation again in life which would steal away her basic Rights from her. And we wish her all the best for her future!