Holy Child Home at Dayabari, Begupara and Ranaghat in the district of Nadia is one such cottage especially sanctioned by the State Government for prisoners’ girl children. The Social Welfare Department, Govt of West Bengal has allotted 50 earmarked seats for prisoners’ girl children under ‘cottage scheme’ at the said institute. There are 31 prisoners’ girl children from the Districts of South 24-Parganas, North 24-Parganas, Murshidabad, Nadia etc are already admitted there and are pursuing their education. The institute has now become the most preferred home to the prison inmates. We are now contemplating establishment of a similar institute for the boys and girls in North Bengal in partnership with a suitable NGO partner.
Individual Sponsorship for the Children
In many cases the convict parents of the children prefer to put their children in a nearby residential school of their choice rather than admission in NGO Homes / Institutes under ‘cottage scheme’. There are many individual sponsors who have come forward to sponsor such children under this project. They support the children by contributing the entire annual expenditure at a time. West Bengal Correctional Services has facilitated this endeavor. We are giving this opportunity to selected prisoners’ children with merit. At present 18 such children are getting the benefits of individual sponsorship programme under the project. In these cases information – sheet and regular progress report of the sponsored child are sent to the sponsors.
However, we have observed that the residential facilities in respect of some of the homes and schools are far from satisfactory which may lead to a poor image of the noble project in the eyes of public. We, therefore, proposed to enlist few Institute / School / Hostels with excellent academic standard with the spirit of service as well as quality of service by the Deptt of Social Welfare on the usual terms and conditions for providing support to poor and destitute children particularly the girls.
Stipend / Educational Support by Ngo / Social Organizations
Another major programme we have undertaken is for grant of annual financial aid to prisoners’ children by our NGO partners to help them in pursuit of their studies. It was primarily decided that a lump-sum financial aid will be provided to the children in need uniformly by all partners as follows:
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| Upto Primary level students : |
Rs. 500/- each annually |
| Upto Secondary level students : |
Rs. 1000/- each annually |
| Upto Higher Secondary level students : |
Rs. 1500/- each annually |
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So far 1265 prisoners’ children living back home in the society are benefiting annually ever since the project was launched on September 24, 2006.
