I had heard of this enterprise at a conference last year but I had never really read or seen anything about this rather unique endeavour being run in Delhi, India. It is a bank for street children largely run by children under the watch of the Children’s Development Bank of India, a venture of Butterflies Voluntary Organization. Today, the Los Angeles Times ran a story on the bank and on the Butterflies charity.
Butterflies is a registered voluntary organization working with street and working children in Delhi since 1989. They believe in the right of every child to have a full-fledged childhood where she/he has the right to protection, respect, opportunities and participation in his/her growth and development. Rights of street and working children are no exception.
From the LA Times:
Run almost entirely by and for street children, the bare-bones bank sponsored by a local charity offers the youths a safe place to stash the bits of money they earn picking through trash for recyclables, hawking magazines and fruit at intersections or busing tables at wedding banquets.
India is home to the world’s largest population of street children, conservatively estimated at 10 million. In Delhi alone, more than 100,000 youngsters are believed to live on the streets. Many remain with their poverty-stricken families, but thousands do not. A large number cluster around the city’s main railway stations — heavily trafficked areas where they can sell their wares and where passengers leave behind detritus they can pick through.
To help the youths plan for a less bleak future, the charity set up its Children’s Development Bank in 2001, a way for street children to learn lessons about money and saving that, for most, their parents aren’t around to teach.
“We see this as a life skill,” said Sebastian Mathew, director of the project. “How much they save is not important. It’s the habit of saving and not spending their money on sniffing glue, smoking, watching the same movie again and again.”
About 2,000 children have accounts at 12 “branches” around Delhi, located in shelters or at sites where the charity runs classes and other activities for homeless youths. Adult staff members are always present to ensure the safety of the children and to collect the takings at the end of each day, depositing the cash at regular intervals in a dedicated account in a private bank.
Butterflies’ primary focus is in Delhi but they run other programmes in other parts of India, Nepal, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.