Sundaraijal Children's Home

My name is Ramesh and my brother’s name is Dinesh. We slept on the street for nearly one year. There was not enough space in our cottage. Because my parents have 4 children. We only had one small room and we were very poor.

My father only had sometimes work. So we (the oldest 3 children) went to live on the street . We were not happy on the street; we always afraid because of the older boys, who used to beat us.

We lived from begging and we got only a little money. We used to give the money to our brother. He bought some food for us. We also all sniffed glue because we felt well when we have sniffed glue. We collect some paper boxes and rice bags to sleep without any blankets. We felt very cold in the night and we felt also very anxious and most of the time we were hungry. It was very difficult to sleep on the street. Other boys stole our money, they often beat us and did bad things.

Sometimes we went home, but only for a few days.

Now I am in Sundaraijal for 2 months.. I feel very nice because we have nice food, enough clothes to wear, and a bed to sleep. It is very difficult not to sniff glue, because we are used to it. But we know, we have a better future here in S. and so we will stay here and don’t run away another time. We go to school now and we learn a lot of things.
In the future I like to be a high Lama because then I can help other people.
We have just got a new brother. But my mother is very sick at this moment and life is very difficult for my parents.

Ramesh is now 14 years old, and he is at school in class 7.