Kalindi college students transform lives of manual scavengers

In a bid to discourage manual scavenging, students from

Kalindi College

, under

project Rehmat

, have rehabilitated 12 people involved in the task. These people have given up the risky work and are leading a life of dignity as employees in textile workshops doing jobs including labelling, stitching and compiling. Srishti Sharma, a third year student and founder of the project, Kalindi College, says


“I launched this project 10 months ago, when I saw a scavenger getting deep into sewers without any safety measures. Many scavengers die because of lack of saftey facilities while performing the task.”

“Under this project, we aim to rehabilitate the scavengers, and make them work in sectors that are more dignified, less risky and give better salaries,” she says. As a part of the project, the manual scavengers are provided

Jeevan kits

for better safety while they are at work. “The kit costing Rs 450, consists of suits that are stitched by female scavengers. This provides women from rural background with better employment opportunities. We provide these kits only for three months, during this period we search for better employment opportunities for these scavengers,” adds Srishti.

She highlights various challenges they had to face while pursuing this project. She says, “We are a team of 13 girls and the biggest challenge is to persuade scavengers in rural areas. Initially, they would be suspicious of us. We had to develop a comfort level with them for about two months and talk to them about the perils of their job as a scavenger.”

Talking about the lives of the people who were rehabilitated from manual scavenging, Srishti says, “We found these 12 scavengers from Mangolpuri and

Rajouri Garden

. We contacted several industries to get them jobs and sign a contract for a permanent employment. Some of them, who were earlier earning Rs 5000 a month, are now working in Micro Precision, a manufacturing unit in Dharuhera, and are earning over Rs 12000 a month. We are searching for more job opportunities for them so that everyone gets work.”

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