Academics teach life skills to slum children

Hyderabad: In the aftermath of the horrifying Singareni Colony rape case in Hyderabad where a six-year-old was raped and murdered in 2021, a group of academics, like-minded citizens and locals from the colony have been working with the slum children in the colony since last three years to prevent sexual violence and uplift the underprivileged boys and girls in the community. As part of this initiative, they have taken up a unique summer camp this year for about 200 children from the slum area, teaching them life-skills, spoken language, dancing etc. “I had my first interaction with Singareni colony children in 2021 when I came here for a fact-finding mission for the rape case. It was then that I realized how unsafe and vulnerable to violence, both boys and girls were in this community,” said Sujatha Surepally, a professor with Satavahana University who led the initiative under the Dalit Women’s Collective and SAFEE foundation. In the past three years, they have worked on after-school classes, rebuilding the faith of the families in sending their girl children out again and in providing young boys some impetus to stay in academics and not drop out. “Our biggest challenge in months after the sexual violence case was to provide safe space for the girls to come out of their homes. There was a situation when parents stopped sending out their girls after 5pm-6pm. The environment in urban slums can get very toxic,” said Sujatha. This effort by Sujatha and her team has helped restore the faith of the community in providing a safe space for the girls. “We have a systematic approach of making case-sheets of every student and learning all about them and understanding what they need support for. Apart from this, the study centre being in the colony from 5pm to 8pm has helped parents of young children to trust us. They see us as a safe space and I’ll take it as a win after what happened in 2021,” shared Pavani Surumala, coordinator for the program. This year, to ensure children in the slums get additional support to hone their personalities, the summer camp will see army officials and other professionals come and speak to the students.The group, however, is in need of more student and professional volunteers to engage the students and boost their morale. “We are in need of 500 per child to run the summer camp and more volunteers this year as we have a floating population of 200-250 students,” said Sujatha.Anyone interested in contributing to run the summer camp for these students can log on to www.safee.org.in to donate or apply to volunteer.