Art View

The children we are working with at Sukrupa are very different than the children we worked with last week in Chennai. When asked to draw a picture of their family, these children drew considerably larger families- usually all of them had at least four children in their family compared to the one or two children per family that the last group had. Sukrupa's children have fathers who drive autorickshaws or trucks, sell vegetables on a pushcart, or work in construction. Most of their mothers do domestic work. These are the children from the slum, but you wouldn't excpect that when first meeting them. They are cheerful and clean and modestly dressed. We are told they were not always clean when they first started coming to Sukrupa. Their parents are not clean still. Many of their parents are alcoholics and the men beat their wives. Once again, I find it surprising to hear this because these children are so sweet. These children are so vulnerable if left in the atmosphere they come from, but Sukrupa has given them an opportunity to escape the cycle they live in.