“I was scared of schools because I was beaten up in the previous school I had attended. I could not trust the NGOs or volunteers when they promised to help. I was afraid that they would publish my photograph without my permission and people would know where I live and will tease me,” said 17-year-old Suhail, the very first child to join Kat-Katha Activity Centre at Delhi’s infamous red-light district, G.B. Road.
Kat-Katha is a non-profit organisation that works with women and children living in the brothels of this area. Their facility here started an activity centre, on an evening-school format, in 2012. The idea was to offer supplemental education and extra-curricular exposure to the local kids, a few of whom were already attending day schools. At the time of its inauguration, Kat-Katha Activity Centre had only one student, Suhail.
Today, 21 regular students are enrolled here. The centre provides these kids with academic support and extra-curricular modules on dance, theatre, art, music, meditation and yoga.
Gitanjali Babbar, Kat-Katha’s founder, spoke to Guardian 20 about her inspiration behind the school. She said, “The idea came from the women, and the need came from the children of G.B. Road. In the beginning, we had no space and we started the classes inside the brothels as that’s what the women wanted. Eventually, we got a separate space and we started teaching there.”
The activity centre also acts as a “safe haven” for children looking to escape the everyday ordeal life in a brothel, as Gitanjali pointed out. It also serves as a psychological support system for the kids.
Aseem, who works with Kat-Katha, is the person responsible for all operations of the activity centre. He said, “Currently, we have 21 children who come to the centre on a regular basis. The vision is to create a safe space where these children can express themselves without any hesitation… The school aims to provide the children with skills and education that can help them rise against the odds and despite the unfavourable circumstances they are currently stuck in. It intends to make them feel empowered so that they can choose whatever they want to pursue in their lives. For this, we have volunteers from different professional backgrounds who come here on a regular basis to talk to the children.”
Suhail has been a part of this centre for the past five years. “I have been with Gitanjali Didi and with this cause since the beginning. I had also accompanied her the first time she went to G.B. Road to talk to the mothers to convince them with her idea of the school. Most of the kids from this area have never been to any school, so the community here is not aware of the importance of education. Mothers were concerned about their kids because they didn’t have anyone else who could take care of the household chores,” he said.
The 16-year-old Abbas, who is now studying in class 5th in an NGO-run school, joined the Kat-Katha Activity Centre on the side because he felt comfortable here. “I remember that in my earlier school the teacher used to beat me up for no reason and I quit that place. When I came here I got immense love and affection from everyone. I then I resumed my schooling as well,” said Abbas.
Another regular at this centre, Kunal is a 12th-standard student. “I was not getting admission in any school as I come from G.B. Road. Schools refused to accept me, and I was told that my presence would spoil the school’s atmosphere. I and Suhail started our formal education from a school under the Hope Project [an NGO that runs education programmes for the underprivileged]. It is a girls’ school and still they let us study there, in the library to begin with. We studied in the school’s library for four years initially. Later we were transferred to regular classrooms,” he said, adding that he wants to pursue hotel management after finishing school.
The activists of Kat-Katha still face many problems when it comes to enrolling new children to their activity centre. Usually, the mothers are reluctant to send their children to them. Out of the hundreds who live here, only 21 kids attend Kat-Katha’s evening classes, which goes to show the magnitude of work that still needs to be done.
Gitanjali Babbar said, “The challenge was to get enough resources and win the trust of the people. Also, it was difficult to get a space in an area where nobody wanted to do anything good for these women… But our biggest challenge is to stay patient as this is a journey where results come very slowly… Kat-Katha is planning different strategies to reach out to as many people as we can. We are going further down this road but we have to change each and every person’s mindset, especially of those who don’t live and judge these women and children.”
Babbar started her journey in this field almost seven years ago. “I didn’t choose G.B. Road. It just happened, I got a chance to visit this road and there was no looking back. When I visited these brothels and met these women, I built a beautiful relationship with them. I have spent a lot of time to understand them and their work.”
She also organises an annual carnival here, with activities like dance, flash mobs, street plays, food stalls, games etc. The carnival is now a huge hit among residents and outsiders alike. “I was not sure about how many people would attend the carnival and we only had around 25 people joining us for the first edition, but that number went up to more than 1,000 people in the fourth year,” she said.
It’s largely thanks to the work done by Babbar and others like her that the public perception and people’s attitude towards this locality, and its residents, is changing. Initially, it was difficult for her to find volunteers for her Kat-Katha project. But today, she gets hundreds of applications by those willing to participate.
She said, “These days we get 200 applications in one go. That’s where the mindsets are changing. The work we do is being accepted. I think that slowly, people are coming out and talking about the real issues. They actually want to get past the old notions. So we have been able to start the process of change.”