Reflections on Yamuna Park Contact Point

15 years ago, I co-founded Friends of SBT and committed to continued self-funded visits to see how and where the money we raise is being spent, making me a regular visitor to the shelter homes, head office and contact points of SBT. I’ve been visiting the Yamuna Park Contact Point for most of the 12 years it has been going.

Lothian Cemetery

It’s not difficult to find, either on Google maps or in real life.  Start at Lothian Cemetery, where grand, classical tombs put up by colonial families lie desolate and irrelevant on ground crunchy with the dead leaves of a huge banyan tree. Follow the railway line east, past the walls of the Red Fort. Between the railway and the ring road is a park. Only in monsoon time does it approach green. 

A blue-grey roof indicates a government night shelter – another place nobody goes, unless they are unfortunate enough to have nowhere else. For a number of years the contact point was based here too, but there was a disagreement with the authorities, and they had to abruptly move.

On the opposite side of the park runs part of the old city walls.  Goats are hanging out.  And then the structure where the contact point is currently based.  A bold, modernist concrete edifice built in 2002 and full of semi-circles.  At the back, burnished and bold in red and gold, lord Hanuman the monkey god in flight.  

SBT's Yamuna Contact Point

Under his protective gaze, and half shielded from the sun by the concrete roof, are about 20 children, going through their lessons with SBT staff on hand to guide them. Quite a few in the red and white check shirts of a nearby school, and exams are approaching.  But the big achievement of the centre in the last two years is in the children who are not here but at school.  With 58 new children admitted in the last year, a total of 133 children have been enrolled in local schools.

Drug abuse has always been one of the biggest risks for children in this area, and one of the reasons the contact point was set up.  Men who have lost the battle against dependency sit or lie in the park for most of the day.  Many of the children have parents or relatives who are either addicted, or live on the streets, or both.  But thanks to SBT, 133 children have a structure to their lives and a real chance to escape that future. A further 387 children received non-formal education from the teachers at volunteers at Yamuna Contact Point last year. alongside the opportunities for play and crafts.

18-year-old Rahul grew up in a torrent of his father’s alcoholism and physical abuse. Alongside his siblings, Rahul was forced into begging at Hanuman temple and set to work at his father’s roadside clothing shop. SBT's Yamuna Contact Point supported the children, who were repeatedly taken away by their mother for household work. Charity workers had to negotiate the father’s aggression, but counselled the family and made real efforts to support Rahul’s education. Despite the chaos, he completed his 12th grade and is now pursuing a degree while working in a hotel in across the city. Rahul maintains strong ties with SBT, visits Yamuna regularly in an attempt to motivate the younger children, and stays connected with the charity.

As the sun begins setting - somewhere beyond Delhi's dense smog - the children walk back to the rooms, the pavements or the shacks they call home. Until the charity workers return tomorrow, Hanuman's gaze is their protection.

Nicholas Thompson and Nidhi Agarwal both volunteered at Salaam Baalak Trust in Delhi and went on to found Friends of SBT to raise awareness of and funds for the charity. You can find out more here.