Stories of Hope
Doing Hope in... India

Words: 
Meg Williams

Photography: 
Mark Kensett
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Amos Trust supports Karunalaya’s work with women and girls. Karunalaya works to secure the rights of girls and women in Chennai’s pavement-dwelling communities by supporting women to remain in education and tackling gender-based violence. They also provide girls and young women with somewhere to go and a safe place to live.

Last year, we visited Karunalaya’s girls’ shelter during our stay in Chennai for the Street Child Cricket World Cup. At that time, 32 girls and young women were staying there. It was clear from the outset that the shelter was more than just a building, with laughter echoing from the walls as the girls demonstrated various dance moves and games to us. Many of the girls, (aged between 4-18), have no known family and have established sibling-like relationships within the shelter.

The shelter provides safety and a space for the girls to thrive, providing supplementary education, counselling and extra-curricular activities like football, dance, yoga and citizenship. When we visited, three out of the four girls who made it onto the 2023 Street Child Cricket World Cup team were living there, as were  others who had represented Karunalaya in the Street Child Football World Cup in 2022.

It was clear from the outset that the shelter was more than just a building, with laughter echoing from the walls as the girls demonstrated various dance moves and games to us.

As you may be aware, the shelter has been at risk for the last year and the staff and the girls have been extremely worried about losing their home. The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) provides the building to Karunalaya. In 2021, they moved their Primary Health Centre into the ground floor of the building where the girls’ shelter was located and the girls were forced to confine themselves to the first floor.

Thriving: Girls at Karunalaya's shelter in Chennai, India dancing together
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The presence of men visiting the health centre and the improper disposal of medical waste created an unsafe environment for the girls, and Karunalaya requested to be moved. In 2022, they were allocated the current building within the grounds of a nearby hospital. However, shortly after, the GCC decided to close this new shelter and relocate the girls again. 

When we visited last September for the SCCWC, the girls in the team were clearly very anxious about the possibility of losing their home and spoke of little else during the child-rights sessions in the Street Child Congress, which I was privileged to help facilitate. They were scared of being split up and placed into state care or of ending up living on the streets where they would be at risk of child labour, sexual violence or child marriage.

Many of them, having faced precarious living situations, welcomed the shelter’s stability and family-like environment. The boys in Karunlaya’s cricket team were incredibly supportive as they have their own boys' shelter, owned by Karunalaya,  and recognise how important it is to have a long-term, stable place to live.

The girls were scared of being split up and placed into state care or of ending up living on the streets where they would be at risk of child labour, sexual violence or child marriage.

However, Paul Sunder-Singh, Karunalaya’s Founder, and the staff team were not going to let it go without a fight. For the last year, they have appealed to various authorities to allow them to stay in the current shelter to provide a secure place for the girls to live together. After multiple setbacks, we were thrilled to hear at the end of June this year that they had finally received an official registration certificate for the shelter, meaning the girls could remain living there! We are delighted to have heard this news, as we know how much it will mean to the girls and young women who live there.

Challenge: “Girls feel that marriage is their final destination.” Paul Sunder-Singh, Founder of Karunalaya in Chennai, India
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Kaviya (15), one of the young women we met in Chennai in 2023, lives in the shelter. She came to live at the shelter after she was abandoned by her parents when she was young and she has since thrived. A mean cricketer, Kaviya represented Karunalaya in the Street Child Cricket World Cup and, more recently, made the local news for scoring highly in her class 10 board exams with four other young women from the shelter. She has now gone to live with her grandmother and will continue her education. 

Karunalaya supports the girls in the shelter through secondary school education and encourages them to continue with further education or vocational training and delay marriage until later. This is challenging, as often girls are encouraged by societal pressures or extended family members to marry before they are legally adults.

Thamizharasi (15), another member of the team, unfortunately, did not continue with schooling and went away soon after the SCCWC. She was influenced by her sister’s husband, who suggested that she get married. With the help of other girls in the community, Karunalaya has remained in contact with her and staff are trying to prevent her from pursuing a child-marriage in secret.

Full flight: Monisha from Karunalaya batting for her team in the 2023 Street Child Cricket World Cup
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Paul, whose background is in social work and human rights law, says that often, “girls feel that marriage is their final destination.” Karunalaya is trying to challenge this mindset amongst the girls and young women it works with and their families. 

Despite these challenges, many of the young women that Karunlaya works with continue to thrive after participating in the Street Child Cricket World Cup. Durga (15), an outstanding wicketkeeper, has also taken her class 10 exams and continues living in the shelter while working and learning retail skills in the Karunalaya convenience store. Meanwhile, Monisha, captain of the team in 2023, is studying to become a police-woman so that she can work towards protecting women and girls living on the streets. 

Thank you to everyone who has been with us on this journey to support Karunalaya. We want them to continue advocating for the rights of women and girls in Chennai and enable them to flourish in a secure and loving environment.

Read more about Karunalaya.
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