Are there any problems of drug abuse, violence among the slum children?
Violence – no; Drug abuse – to an extent, yes, especially in th new kids we are working with. They are rag pickers and/or begging on the street. They eat a lot of ‘tambaku’; we spend about 2 hours with them, and during this time, several children get up to eat his thing they have bought from the paan shop. When we talk about it, the responses have been ‘it is good to eat when we are angry or upset about something’; ‘ i get a headache if i don’t eat it’. The kids at the first center also used to have a lot of this earlier but they have never complained about a problem if they don’t have it. It has been attributed to being a habit, which barring three-four of them, all have given up. Gambling – seen once in a while.
