The aim of SAI is to promote understanding between young people in India and the UK, and to offer some assistance to the Indian partner organisations. A previous visit to India had enticed me to return for a longer period to see a different side of Indian life. Having worked in an orphanage for 6 months in Malaysia during my gap year, I was keen to further my experience of working in a developing country. It has projects in 4 of the 76 slums in Bangalore. Parents cannot afford to send young children to school and elder siblings are forced to drop out in order to earn an income for the family.
Work is irregular and very poorly paid which reinforces the cycle of poverty and child labour.
Non Formal Education centres exist for working children who have either dropped out of school to work, or have never attended school. The classes are held either in the morning or afternoon to allow the children to go to work during the day if absolutely necessary. Parents must still partly fund their child's education as part of their own empowerment and capacity building. At Ashokpuram and Satyanagar we started the day with an English lesson for formal school children before their classes began. The lessons tended to focus on conversational English as well as vocabulary and a little grammar.