… in Hindi. Little girls are sometimes called ‘guria’ by elders lovingly. That so many of the little girls who themselves should be playing with dolls are trafficked and abused is tragic. Should these girls and boys be children of sex-workers, they start life from a very depressed, disadvantaged perspective.

Society looks down upon them for not having a father’s name; the pimp is ready to enlist them in the sex trade either as future pimps or as prostitutes; their educational opportunities are limited; and all this is further compounded by the psychological trauma of living in a home that is in the red-light district.

works in multiple ways:

• It provides children of sex-workers with a safe space where they come before and after school as well as during summer and school vacations to explore multiple crafts, computers, extra-curricular activities.

• It provides therapy through the medium of meditation, art, music, dance, theatre, photography, sports, gardening and mulitple other activities and outings that allow children to experience a sense of both acceptance and normalcy.

• The Center also provides food and nutrition to the children and supplments their diet.

• It serves to identify youth in the red-light area so that they are kept out of the sex trade, since their presence is known to adults in the Non-Formal Education Center who will follow up, if the child(ren) should be absent or harmed in any way.

• It provides children growing up in difficult circumstances with support and companionship.

• It serves as a locus because of its location within the red-light area where children can access help from dependable adults. Guria pays the school fees of many children who cannot afford it, as well as supplying them with school bags, stationary, books etc.

strives to support programs that prevent violence against women and children as well as those programs which provide support after the fact.

Prevention initiatives, like this one, regard the protection of children as the first course of action. Guria’s Non-Formal Education Center serves to protect children so that they are not preyed upon, despite living in insecure and unsafe surroundings.