http://www.childrenwalkingtall.com

is the best

lez

many thanks. just logged onto their website so I now know where they are.

Hi yeah, we (Children Walking Tall) are happy to receive chidlrens clothes, as we're just opened the need is even greater as we do give the children a change of clothes when they shower here. If you want to know more then please feel free to email us via the website.

I guess it would be best to give them to a recognised charity.

My wife and I took quite a bit of clothing in February to give out to some children in a small shanty fishing shack type area in Colva. The locals seemed none to pleased that we did that because they were the children of sqautters from Karnataka.

I got a little upset at that and so did my wife. Children are children wherever we go. They still have needs. If ever we get to the point of trying to discern between needy children then we have somehow sort of lost the plot, in my view.

The children still have the same grateful smiles on their faces!

Our main problem , to be honest, was how to give the clothing out. We eventually succeeded one early morning but it was a bit hectic though.

We became quite well accepted by the fishermen's family in that particular area as well and were always greeted with a smile and a greeting etc.

Hopefully I'll get the Newsletter done this weekend as I should have time to do some office work, it will have a story in it (a cautionary tale) about giving clothes out, it's not up yet, but basically one of long term volunteers and her Indian friend (both of which had done it many times before) went to give clothes out in Mumbai.

When it's up it will be here, there are old ones to keep you busy in the mean time.....

http://www.childrenwalkingtall.com/Newsletters.htm

It started OK with the children but then their parents joined in trying to get clothes for their children, Claudia's (Our Volunteer) had her clothes and hair pulled just, and she thought they would do ANYTHING to get the clothes... Obviously she was scared... She had her LOCAL Friend with her who knew the language etc, but it hardly helped. They went away, with people still following, back to her friends sisters house, where there was still shouting and ready to fight for just a few clothes. So please be aware if they are really deseperate for clothes etc it can be dangerous. Many parents do drink, just in our local slum there's one man who I don't think I've ever seen sober. And I see him nearly every day at that! Thankfully his aggression is normally aimed at another drunken father etc, but you do need to be careful. (The new one WILL be the March Newsletter by the way)

I think your advice is very sound indeed. You are right about the parents as well. I think they were encouraging their children to push forward etc.

The sad thing is that these children do actually need clothing. If they are going to be ignored by local people and tourists alike then they will get no help whatsoever. Any ideas of a way round that?

Perhaps the orphanages could hand their clothing that is not needed down to these children. Children are children.

Thinking of it logically. The small amount of clothing my wife handed out will not solve the problem in that particualr area we went to. it does need to be on-going to be of any help whatsoever. The other way is to 'adopt' a family and just help that family. That in itself could also cause problems.
Sometimes with the best of intentions we can worsen a situation.

We went inside their homes as well. The conditions were very spartan indeed but I suppose , one has to remember that they tend to move on from one area to another quite a bit.

This was the second time that we had visited this particular place in a few months. One noticeable change we experienced was that on the second visit we noticed that a few children were actually begging for money and chocolate. I hope that we were not a catalyst in helping this to happen.

One particular evening we recognised one mother from the area out with her children. She was actively encouraging them to approach tourists for money. Surprisingly, when she saw us approach she called her children away.

I am in no way condemning her for what her children were doing. I was just trying to somehow see where we fit in to all this.

In conclusion, I think we will give our clothes to a recognised charity next time. When disasters occur in the World we all send money to charities expecting it to be used wisely rather than hand money over personally.

We do give out clothes to lots of street children and the children from the villages dotted around, a couple of weeks ago we borrowed a jeep and toured round giving items out. It does help having experience and it always helps having a badge as then they see you're not tourists, it also helped taking a Hindi speaker along with us too, to say why we're doing it etc.. Some of the places might not have had any without her as they thought they had to pay for the clothes! :o) - Which of course they didn't....

We get a good amount of clkothes from people who bring it with them and if we get loads then we just give more out. It works quite well, this means Children Walking Tall still has a good range of lcothes, but anything we have surplus (in sizes or styles etc) we can then give out to others who would otherwise not get items. As well as supporting the local workers, builders, rag pickers etc we do also help out other organisations which don't have the same contacts. Some are governmental homes (we have helped out at four recently) and also help out other NGO's non governmental...

Last weekend we took nearly 250 items to a government babies home (these included Tops, Bibs, socks, dresses, Trousers, Hats, Cardigans etc).

It does help having a badge as they see it as more offical rather than tourists wanting to help. We also tell the children that's it's 'Musti' (Naughty) to beg... And do make a fuss about it.#

If you would like to come and see what we do then please feel free. We could (as long as you give us plenty of notice) try and organise a 'giving out session' that coincides with your visit. Although it does help to be very organised before hand - knowing what sizes you have etc...

Our website is the link below...

Rob,

Many thanks for explaining all that. We will definitely get in touch when we return again.

regards.