PCI: Celebrating 50 Years of Positive Community Impact


PCI's Orphaned and Vulnerable Children Programs



Eleven million young Indians call the street their home – the largest population of street children and youth in the world. In New Delhi, the number of street youth is estimated at over 100,000. Orphaned or abandoned, and left to fend for themselves, these children and adolescents mostly find shelter at rail stations, bus depots, and waste dumpsites, where they eke out meager and unreliable incomes as luggage porters, petty workers, and rag pickers. For a child, a life on the street comes with the imminent danger of exploitation, abuse, hunger, illness, and substance addiction. PCI India works to enhance the life opportunities for street children and youth by providing a continuum of services through its Orphaned & Vulnerable Children (OVC) Program. From children on the streets to adolescents in the slums, our diverse and comprehensive services provide shelter, nutrition, health care, psychosocial support, access to formal and non-formal education, family reunification, and life skill and livelihood training. Through the work of our dedicated and qualified team, we improve the life opportunities for the most marginalized and disadvantaged young people in India. We believe that if basic needs are met, a child’s ability to take control over his/her future strengthens – a life of deprivation can be transformed into a life of empowerment.
Drop in centres:
Red Fort and Nizamuddin — Delhi Our Drop In Centres, located at the Old Delhi and Nizamuddin railway stations, are the cornerstone projects of our OVC Program. Boys between the ages of 6 and 17 are received into the Centres where they stay from one day to a few weeks depending on their needs. The Centres provide hot meals, medical checkups, formal and nonformal education, counselling, and life skill training. Annually, about 1,400 boys use the centres’ services. We leverage our strong community relationships to refer girls who need similar support to services run by other NGOs in the area. Family Reunification A unique feature of our program is our focus on family reunification, rooted in the belief that home is the best place for a young person. After confirming the address, health and safety of a child’s family home, we motivate him to return to his roots and help restore him to his family. As of the end of May 2011, we have reunited 950 children with their families since the commencement of our OVC program in 2000. Shelter Home — Bhango, Mewat, Haryana Our Shelter Home in Bhango village (Mewat, Haryana), can house 40 boys and young men between the ages of 6 to 18. Typically, these young people have stayed at the Drop In Centres for extended durations and could not be reunited with families or referred to other programs. Since 2004, the Shelter Home has been a safe haven providing boys and young men with shelter, nutrition health care, psychological support and access to formal and non-formal education in a supportive and cooperative rural community. Vocational Training Centre — New Seemapuri, Delhi Our Vocational Training Centre, in New Seemapuri, Delhi, provides vocational skill instruction, from cutting and tailoring to computer training, to about 700 adolescent girls between the ages of 14 and 20 annually. With skills in art, crafts, beauty, sewing, and computers, the girls become not only economically self-empowered, but also highly employable. The Centre helps transform young girls who have dropped out of school due to difficult family circumstances into confident microentrepreneurs or employees. We track the girls post training and are proud to report that over 70% of them enhance their family incomes from 30 to 50%, resulting in significant improvement in the livelihood and health status of their families. Job Readiness Training — Pune In collaboration with Street Kids International, the world’s leading technical organization working with street youth, PCI’s Job Readiness Project provides intensive training for young men and women between the ages of 18 and 22 in basic job skills from effective communication to goal setting and successfully placed these youths with companies and businesses after training. We completed a pilot program in March 2011, successfully training and placing 23 youth and helping them improve their family incomes from 40 to 80%. In the second year of this project, we are training 60 youth and will place 46 in steady employment

PCI's Orphaned and Vulnerable Children Programs