Logica - Bloom in beeld

Last saturday we (Paul and I) left Holland and went to Hyderabad in India. We had a bad start since the airplanefrom Amsterdam to London had a two hours delay, but we where just in time at London Heathrow to catch the adjecting flight to India. After 9 and a half hours we arrived at Hyderabad International Airport and arrived at the hotel by 6 AM on Sunday morning. Our colleague from Bangalore office (Ashok Aritakula) arrived just a few hours earlier by train.


We took de rest of the morning off to get some rest after the long flight and after that we went for sight seeingthe city of Hyderabad by auto rickshaw [ really just a upgraded scooter in which three people can sit].

On Monday we went to see two bridge camps [ one boy and one girl ]. In a bridge camp children stay which have (just) been taken out of child labour. The first fifteen days the child is placed in a special counseling group in which it is promoted to stop there 'bad habits' like smoking and lime sniffing. After that period they will learn primary skills in maths, english, social, science and telegu [the local language]. And during breaks the children can play off course, which these children should suppose to do but where not always able to. To promote the children to play we visited the local mall to buy some toys like badminton rackets, some footballs, a 'scottland yard' game and some frisbees. This since we were told the children did not have access to these toys yet. Average time for the children to stay in a camp is 6 months and their age varies from 6 to 15 years old. These camps we visited had a maximum capacity of 120 (boys) and 150 (girls) and were both opened recently [within one and a half year].


Although this all seems very nice, we where touched by one boy who came to us and asked for help. Since his father had died, his uncles where after the land the boy inherited. The uncles threatened even to kill the boy to get the land. Ashok very nobly offered to contact local media and authorities. Who knows how this will end.


On tuesday the first training session started in which the volunteers are trained in the use of the Child Monitoring System [CMS]. These volunteers regularly perform door-to-door survey in which they try to find children who do child labour, and after that they monitor the children. For that purpose they can use the CMS system in the (near) future. We hope just to solve the latest errors in the software and make the final adjustments based on the feedback of the volunteers. All this to be done this week...

Phir Milenge,

Geert Jan de Boer.