CHILDHOOD SLAMMED BEHIND BARS

Away from the hustle and bustle of the town, situated in the interiors of Noida is the juvenile

Home, a temporary home for around 130 kids, some in for petty offences while for the others

the degree of offence is pretty high.They are going to be there till they fulfill their sentence. The

mere mention of a juvenile brings us to a mind frame of the child being a criminal and leads us

to think of what all heinous crimes would he have committed. There is always a second side of

the story, different from what we perceive which we tend to ignore given the fact that they are

already labelled as criminals.What we need to realise is that they are already being penalized

for what they have done, so besides talking about the crimes they have committed or the laws

they have broken, let's shift the focus to what they're missing, the joy of independence, the hope

for a better future, the innocence of childhood and the boon of education.

On a visit to the juvenile Home, I observed that the kids over there are of different ages,

different heights, belonging to different religions and regions all behind the grills serving their

sentences. These grills of the juvenile Home, no different in any way than the bars of the jail not

only block them from the outside world but also block the opportunities that they have coming

their way. It's not just us, the civilians who think of them as marked offenders but each institution

and every organisation blacklists them further demotivating them and scarring their lives. These

kids need more than just food and a few pieces of clothing because believe it or not they also

constitute a part of the young nation, the future generation who is to lead the country to greater

heights. They lack the proper resources required for making them literate, the guidance for

developing their skill and the counselling needed for instilling in them the societal and the

humanitarian values which they shall require once they have served their term and are out in

the open again to face the world.

I am a member of Enactus, Dyal Singh College an organisation which has been working with

these kids under the project ANMOL for the past one year teaching them the art of quilling and

further developing their entrepreneurial and quilling skills extending a hand to make them self

reliant before they're out of the juvenile home.

I visited the juvenile home for the first time for conducting a quilling workshop along with other

team members as per our working norms. The spark in their eyes on meeting new people from

outside and the excitement to learn something new spoke volumes about their thirst for

creativity and innovation. While working with them, their cooperation and patience with the

intricate paper quilling and loads of assembling is a sheer joy and makes working seem like a

child's play.

The philosophy behind the law that protects the juveniles is that they have to be given a second

chance but we have a long way to go before arriving at ‘child friendly’ juvenile justice. A little

support from the community playing the role of a friend, adviser, reformer and a healer

simultaneously for them would give these kids a ray of hope illuminating their lives.