Situation Demanded to Start a shelter home for Street Chidlren
Tirunelveli Social Service Society(TSSS) has been actively engaged in the development of child labour since 1985. While working with the target people for the development of child labour in the villages, we faced the problem of run-away children in the villages. These children were found in the district head quarters in Tirunelveli. These children are known as street children, and these children are those who made the street as their home, living on their earning, eating and breeding on the streets. These children used to live on pavements with out any one to take care of them. From our initial survey we found quite many children on the streets. Tirunelveli Social Service Society as a development organization which showed a special interest in child labour took up the cause of street children also.
The aim of this programme is to prevent and rehabilitate the street children who are living on the streets and the pavements. The rehabilitation centre provides shelter for the abandoned, deprived and destitute who are on the streets. The centre tries to rehabilitate these children by various measures like home placement, formal school placement, Technical school placement, job placement and skill development.
Services from a rented building
Initially we started rehabilitation centre for street children in a rented building at KAILASAPURAM, Tirunelveli city. 35 children stayed in the shelter everyday
From the rented building to the own building
The number of children coming to centre increased day by day. So the rented building was not enough to accommodate them. We desired to build a permanent building for this programme. We bought the land for constructing a new building near Tirunelveli Railway Station and the building was inaugurated on 3rd September 1996. In addition to that in the beginning of the year 2012 a well structured building was constructed.