Mary Mushi, Safeguarding and Technical Lead in Tanzania, shares insights from her recent visit to India.
Date: 27th February 2025
The main reasons children end up on the streets are the same across both countries – abuse, neglect and poverty. When I visited India though, I also saw that online dating and early marriage also often cause children to run away. That doesn’t happen so much in Tanzania.
The families I visited while I was in India were very welcoming and open to our support – much as the families in Tanzania are. And, of course, in both countries our family workers are respectful, empathetic and passionate about what they do.
Families are families wherever you are – the approach we have to our family work makes a difference whatever context you are working in.
In Tanzania, we’ve been using a therapeutic model for our family work for many years, and it’s seen great results. In India, family work is an area that is still developing. So, after the India team visited our work in Tanzania and saw our family work in action, they were keen for colleagues in India to understand and replicate this approach. By visiting each other’s projects and sharing our experiences, we’re more effective than if we worked alone.
First, we build a relationship with the family and carry out an assessment to ensure we fully understand the family’s situation. Often, parents will have experienced trauma which affects their experience of parenting.
After the relationship has been built, family workers can help set goals to support family members and process their experiences. After that, it’s about helping the whole family heal, build positive relationships and support each other, and to come up with goals they can meet together.
That’s why, as well as sharing insights across India and Tanzania, we’re also developing our family-based work in the UK, because we know that, the more positive relationships are at home, the happier children will be – enabling them to build a future in which they can thrive.
Railway Children will join partners from the Rooted Futures collaboration at the 2026 Skoll World Forum to lead an interactive session on family strengthening and child protection reform.
Over 200 supporters from the rail industry raised more than £60,000 at Railway Children’s Night At The Station event, spending a night in stations across the UK to protect vulnerable children at risk.
Through our flagship youth participation programme, Youth Platform, young people are shaping our training materials, influencing key decisions and ensuring the rail industry truly understand youth vulnerability.
No child wants to survive on the streets. And, through understanding and empowerment, together, we can ensure no child has to.
Julia, 24, grew up as a boy but knew, early on, that the gender she’d been born into was not who she was. Here, she talks to Youth Platform about her journey, and what she wishes she’d know as a ten-year-old boy.
Reflecting on the unique strengths different minds bring to Railway Children and the rich potential of the neurodivergent young people we support.
