Annual Report

2006-2007

and

10 Year Retrospective

Dear Friends,

In 1996-97, much was happening in the world. Peacekeepers were fresh in Bosnia, the Olympics, held in Atlanta that year, experienced a pipe bomb left in a garbage can. That was also the year Dolly the Sheep was cloned and Princess Diana began a campaign against landmines. In Bombay, it was the year Saathi began its work, thus establishing a journey that has taken us down many roads, into contact with countless people, and built an organization of which we are proud.

Ten years. It is not so very long and at the same time, it is an eternity. It is not long enough to have done all we want to do and yet it is long enough that we have been able to affect individual’s lives for the better, raise awareness about certain issues, and influence change. In recognition of a decade of work, we have included a 10 year retrospective in this Annual Report.

2006-07 saw the world just as active as it was a decade ago. A tragic event close to home ended up having significant impact on Saathi on many levels.  The seven bomb blasts which ripped through local commuter trains on 11^th July, 2006, created a domino effect. Many of team workers use those trains daily and the initial response was to account for everyone. The next was to look at the communities affected and also understand our own fears in the days following. As the weeks passed and Mumbai returned to a sense of normalcy, our outreach workers began to see a disquieting trend - the children and youth were no longer arriving at Mumbai Central Railway Station as often.  Security measures at train stations had been increased after the blasts with constant police presence on and around the platforms. From the suburbs to the heart of Mumbai, children and youth arriving on long distance trains saw the officers from the earliest stops in the city. Their fear of being caught as runaways led to them disembarking at random stations when the train would pause or make a brief stop. They were still arriving in the city, but now in locations we couldn’t trace with any regularity. A second effect of the increased security at stations was that those who live at or around the station were disbursed. These people, as stakeholders of the station, make up a good portion of the net of contacts Saathi utilizes in order to reach and protect runaways arriving on the trains. They supplement the efforts of the outreach workers and are a significant source of referrals when the workers are otherwise engaged or not present. The impact of this can be seen in the numbers reached this year, which are significantly lower than in the past. We can only hope that just as we did not know where to reach the children and youth disembarking at earlier stations, neither could the brothel and labour agents. As time has passed and security has lessened at the stations, we are starting to see a return of runaways following the line all the way to Mumbai Central station.

There were many positive aspects to 2006-07, as well, as you will see in the project summaries. The rights-based approach has been focused with greater intensity. We have also put an emphasis on building a legacy of sorts, understanding how we are impacting systems that affect the youth with which we work in addition to the individualized support we offer.

For those of you who have been with us for a while, our heartfelt gratitude for walking this path with us. Your support, both material and moral, has been invaluable to us. For those of you just getting to know us, welcome to our family and our world. We hope you will find it as rewarding as we do.

Warm regards,

The Saathi Team

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