The Kids of Kolkata ...........The serious bit ...............

 Kids of Kolkata Dochas (Gaelic for Hope) Trust was set up in 2008 but the work has been going on informally since 2005.  This is a Christian based Trust helping the children on the streets of Kolkata.   Many of the children have no family and try to get food in whichever way they can, sometimes by begging, stealing, scrounging for food in the rubbish and sometimes resorting to prostitution.  Many of these children become addicted to drugs at a very early age some as young as 5 or 6.

Our aim is to help in practical ways by getting the children into places of safety where they can be educated and break the cycle of poverty and abuse, and to show them that they are loved. We also support work which tries to give employment to the sex workers of Kallighat – these women are not there by choice, some no more than 11 or 12, some have been stolen from their families and some have been sold by their families.  It is a very evil place with over 20000 sex workers but little by little small projects are being started to teach these women skills to enable them to get work away from the sex trade.

Every year we go to Kolkata to make sure that the work is progressing and to see the growing number of women and children who are being given above all else hope for the future.  No expenses for travel or accommodation are paid by the Trust so all of the funds raised go in their entirety to make a difference to the future of the Kids of Kolkata.

Allan and Pamela Lemon (AKA my mum and dad )