A) MOHOR - Providing Shelter to Children of Sex Workers

It is a residential program that provides day care and night shelter for children of commercial sex-workers, aged between 6 months to 15 years old. Owing to the nature of their mothers’ work, these children are put completely in the care of this shelter, with the mother’s consent. Swadhar’s primary objective and priority is care and protection of the beneficiaries since they are an extremely vul-nerable group. It is only after their protection, security, emotional, mental and physical health is en-sured, that their mainstream education is focused upon through various educational activities and programs. Institutionalizing these children is very important for their future.

Project Objectives

• To help children in need of survival, care, protection and development.
• To understand magnitude of child vulnerability as a result of their mothers profession.
• To understand the need of these children in order to create relevant and evidence based intervention.
• To prevent second generation prostitution by defending their rights and dignity and providing a safe environment also by supporting their education and health.
• To provide long term care, rehabilitation repatriation to break the cycle of exploitation through education and by creating choices.
• To take initiatives to change society wide perceptions of the children of sex workers

Proper care, protection, good nutrition and an overall-development-conducive environment are provided to these children by Swadhar. Rehabilitation of some children is also sought through plac-ing them in residential schools where they can pursue their education and live a healthy life. The regular interventions undertaken in this program are -

a) Age appropriate education is offered to all children who are eligible.
b) Health and nutrition - Children are given nutritious food prepared in Swadhar’s own kitchen un-der an expert and very meticulous supervision. Children get fresh fruits and well balanced meals planned by nutritionists.
c) Health checkups - Health is a major concern among these children since they are born and raised in unhygienic living conditions. Therefore regular medical, dental and skin checkups are done. Any illness is immediately attended medically.
d) Holistic development - These children mostly never leave the red light area. Their world is re-stricted only to the premises of the area, which stunts both their mental and social growth. Several activities and programs are therefore designed to address this issue. All religious fes-tivals are celebrated at the shelter to give them a multi-cultural exposure. They are also taken to visit other schools and institutions, where an exposure to other students (unfailingly) inspires them and makes a huge impact on their behavior. They are taken to visit gardens, parks, mu-seums, etc too. They are also regularly made to visit Bal Kalyan - a government run organiza-tion - where they learn extracurricular activities like music, swimming, pottery, art, dancing, etc.