Hope funds and operates over 60 projects within West Bengal to provide the basic rights of education, nutrition, health care and protection of the vulnerable population such as street & slum children, child labour, children of sex workers, child beggars, homeless children and people, children with HIV/AIDS and victims of human trafficking. Hope works with 13 Indian partner organizations to rescue thousands of children from the streets and slums and enable them to have a better future.

Hope’s existing projects include protection homes for vulnerable children, education centres, life skill training units, Drop-in Centres for street children under Nabadisha Programme in collaboration with Kolkata Police, Primary Healthcare Programme in partnership with Irish Aid, Night Watch to keep vigil on street children at night and a well-equipped hospital for the poor and needy.

Hope Foundation also provides skill development training such as computer skills, video Making, professional tailoring, English Language skills, professional cooking, baking and food processing to poor women and youth to help them generate income. We have Self Help Group mothers from the community, who are trained by professional trainers to make handicraft materials from recycled materials. Till date, Hope has reached out to nearly 30,000 vulnerable children and over 300,000 impoverished families.

One of our significant projects is run in the Bhagar area which is quite famously known as the dumping ground area of the Howrah Municipality. The communities residing here are extremely vulnerable and the ladies belonging to these families are primarily rag-pickers. They lead a very hard life and deal regularly with extreme filth and dirt which often causes various skin and lung infections in them due to exposure to hazardous waste materials. The infection often gets transmitted to their children, thus worsening the situation.

However, since Hope has intervened in this area, situations have changed for the better as we have empowered the women living here and also given an opportunity to their children to attend school as ‘first generation learners’. A crèche has also been set up for the very young children so as to prevent them from going with their mothers for rag-picking in the early hours of morning. We are aiming to educate as many children as we can in that area and enable them to establish themselves in future and save them from falling into the vicious circle of poverty and never ending misery. Lets together pledge to make a difference and improve the quality of lives for them.