CRY, INC – CHILD RELIEF & YOU

Cry – Child Relief and You is an independent charity dedicated to the cause of deprived Indian children. Children who have been denied their right to childhood – living on streets and railway platforms, working in hazardous, exploitative conditions, girl children, children of sex workers,, tribal and disabled children…who do not have a future to look forward to. Cry tries to restore to these vulnerable children their basic right…to food shelter, health, education and a future. Cry acts as a link between people who have resources of money, skills, materials or time and development workers who need these resources to work with deprived children and women. In 16 years, CRY has evolved a dynamic and comprehensive approach towards enabling underprivileged children realize their full potential.

These grants supported the Apnalaya, Swanivar, and ISDGEI projects.

The Apnalaya Project – A child focused slum community development program for the community who were brought to Bombay to build the Bhabha Atomic Research Center in Chembur. In 1993, this community of 560 households was shifted by Apnalaya to land of their own, provided by the government, in Chickuwadi, Mankhurd, at the base of the Ghats. Apnalaya pays for the education in municipal schools of 105 children and provides pre-school and non-formal education to over 90 children in Chickuwadi.

Other programs include supporting and strengthening local community groups, running a clinic for preventative and curative health-care and ante-natal care, running programs for drug-abuse prevention and AIDS awareness and prevention.

Apnalaya also runs widely successful training programs which are much sought after by community and social workers.

The Swanivar Project – Swanivar is a community development program run by Dr. Sujit Sinha. It focuses on education, nutrition and hygiene in a highly underdeveloped, neglected and primarily agrarian population. It encourages different income generation activities (such as a spice and honey processing unit), and savings schemes, and the promotion of sustainable agricultural practices.

Cry support has been in the form of funds and training for the following:

• 4 pre-primary centers in 4 villages with an enrollment of 120 children
• 11 supplementary education centers for Class 1-5 in 4 villages with an enrollment of 218 children.
• Community managed health programs through clinics in the same 4 villages.

The ISDGEI Project – Addresses both the educational and the community needs of a resettlement colony of tribals from South India, comprising over 550 families and 3,000 individuals. Poverty coexists with the social ills of alcoholism, wife beating, child marriages, and malnutrition especially in the case of girl children.

Cry has been supporting ISDGEI since 1991 in the following areas:

• Creche or “balwadi” for infants and very young children
• Non-formal education through an experimental open-school system to illiterate children, particularly working girls who are not in school
• Qualitative education to children through the institute’s own primary school
• Vocational training with income generation opportunities to women and girl children who have completed Standard 5
• Recreational and personality developing activities
• Community outreach services such as legislation for women, family planning, preventing child marriages and the dowry system, and marital adjustments

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