Kerala: Children's Home inmates to enjoy weekly outing

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Five months ago when two boys escaped from a Children’s Home in the state, the local police did not have much trouble locating them. The boys sneaked out of a government school during the lunch break and the police picked them up before 5 pm.., some 15 kms away in a coastal area where a film shoot was on. The boys had not only told their friends about how desperate they were to watch the shoot but one of them had also made a pencil sketch of a shooting location on the wall of the Home. There were also innumerable instances of boys jumping welfare homes to watch the beach, the zoo, magic shows, and also films.

Finally, after shutting them inside the four walls of a home in the guise of protecting them from outside influences, realisation seems to have dawned. For the first time ever, the department has decided to take out inmates in children’s homes and special homes for an outing every week. They will be taken to a beach or a park or a film or even exhibitions. Where they would go a particular week would not be left to the whims of superintendents or caretakers but to the inmates themselves. The children will decide it among themselves at the Children’s Committee or ‘Balasabhas’ in each home.

The department has sanctioned Rs 3000 per weekly outing for the six special homes in the state, and also for Kannur Government Girls’ Home. For the remaining nine children’s home, the amount sanctioned is Rs 5000 per outing. The total sanctioned amount for the weekly outing of 16 welfare homes next five months till December 2017 is Rs 13.2 lakh. “A lower amount has been allocated for special and girls’ home because the inmate strength is relatively less in these institutions,” a top social justice department official said.

Children’s Home is a shelter for poor and orphaned children. Special homes are where convicted children are lodged. The scheme would be scaled up or wound down based on the experiences in the first five months from August. “It is only when you allow children to explore the world outside, just like parents do in ordinary homes, can we truly call these welfare institutions as homes,” said lawyer J. Sandhya, a child activist and a former member of the Child Rights Commission.