“I sometimes feel like going back to the way I was living before. But I have to fight it.”

Sanoj (19 years) walks in every morning to the Ehsaas (Railway Children India Partner, Luchnow) office at 8.15 a.m. He signs in the register and goes for his usual rounds at Lucknow station. He looks around for new children at the station and also interacts with the older boys enquiring about new children. He also chats up with the vendors and the police asking if anything has been noted at the platform. Sanoj seems to be like a typical outreach worker of Ehsaas, NGO based in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Little does one realize that Sanoj’s life has not been very different from the many children with whom he interacts on a daily basis.

Sanoj was first contacted by Ehsaas in the year 2002. Sanoj was barely 12 years then. He was a typical platform child who would spend the day collecting water bottles and selling them and the evening on food, movies and gambling. Sanoj was an orphan with 3 brothers and sisters. Each one was growing up in their own way at the platform.

“Initially Sanoj would not do much when he would come to the center. He was very distracted and could not concentrate on anything. But gradually he learnt to read and write a bit. We wanted to admit him to school but he refused,” recalls the non formal educator. Another outreach worker adds, “It was very frustrating because Sanoj did not show much interest in anything. He seemed to be quite satisfied about the way he was living at the platform. However there was one thing we noted…. he would come to the center everyday. He seemed to like to visit the center. He would even get younger children from the platform to the center and would take care of them like he was their older brother. It was actually nice and even if he was not doing much we were happy that he would come daily.”

This continued for around 5 years, when one day Sanoj, now 17 years, met the founder member of Ehsaas and expressed a desire to work in her organisation. As an experiment, Ehsaas recruited Sanoj as their first peer group member. “We have absolutely no regrets about this decision. Sanoj is very good with children and is very intuitive about them. He has a very good understanding about their psychology and shares with us his insights. This has proved to be very helpful in our work. Somewhere deep down he just knows how these children feel, what they are going through. And children like him. Somehow they are able to relate to him and look at him as though he is their older brother. The best part is that all this has helped him to come out of the platform.” (Coordinator, Ehsaas)

For Sanoj, there is no looking back. “I feel good that I am able to work with these children encourage them to make their lives better. I am now very confident. You see that police station…. as a child I was very scared of even standing close to this station. Now I go and talk to the police officers about cases of children. I am not scared anymore. I go to different places to reach children back to their families. And I feel good…. I feel satisfied at the end of the day. Sometimes I am still tempted. I feel like again going back to the way I was living before. But I have to fight it. Now I have respect. I get respect from others. I now live my life with my head held high.”