The David Sassoon Remand School for boys is a beautiful old colonial building set in a lovely open space, in the hustle and bustle of Mumbai city life. This school is very different from a mainstream boarding school as it is a an institution set up for juveniles under the State for Women and Children Welfare Department and is run by the Children’s Aid Society which is a State Government aided voluntary organisation that provides services for the protection, care, treatment and rehabilitation of destitute, delinquent, victimized and mentally deficient children. There are roughly anywhere between 120 and 200 boys staying at the school at any one time. The boys have usually ended up here due to different scenarios, some of which are:

• Stealing an apple, because he was living on the streets for one reason or another and he has no food or money so desperate measures led him to take the apple.
• Working under the legal age in a factory.
• The more serious criminal cases are also there such as rape.

Click here to read about how Suresh came to be at David Sassoon.

The reasons behind these scenarios are all mainly down to poverty, parental neglect, violence at the home, history of deprivation and exploitation. The school has educational and vocational facilities available, however the performance of the children is often very low, the teachers say they are withdrawn, unresponsive, disruptive and unable to concentrate. When the boys arrive at the school many of them have deeply rooted problems that have never been addressed, the Savitri Trust therefore strives to improve the lives for these children through various means.

Our Support The Savitri Waney Charitable Trust & OJUS Medical Institution provides the following to the school to help improve the lives of these boys:

• Kitchen renovation
• School equipments/materials where necessary
• Daily delivery of fruit and weekly provision of eggs
• Child psychologist who attends school daily
• Child psychiatrist who attends school weekly
• Facilitation of different workshops from qualified personnel (so far workshops have included art therapy, teacher/pupil communication, and HIV/AIDS awareness)

The Savitri Trust has also linked with the Magic Bus charity to provide a weekly sports programme to the 10-14 yr olds. A summer camp was initially held in 2005 with the school to see how the children would react. There was such a fantastic response from both the teachers and pupils that Magic Bus has continued on. In their sports programmes they aim to teach very valuable lessons on life such as the importance of hygiene, not to use foul language, teamwork, listening to instructions, respecting elders and each other.

Mission for visionnon

Pain & Palliative care

Sirasu development project

Savitri rural development project

Committed communities development trust