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How Delhi's street kids turned their lives around by telling their stories
Dateline meets Jyoti, one of the reporters for Balaknama - a newspaper run by street children, about street children in Delhi, India. Over five years, she has managed to re-write her own story.
Published
By Naima Brown
Source: SBS
Image: Usha is a reporter for Balaknama, a newspaper run by street kids, for street kids.
Five years ago, Jyoti was a drug addict, common among teenagers growing up in slums.
She and her mother were living in one of Delhi’s slums, often going without food.
. At that time, she was a plucky, fearless reporter working for an unusual newspaper called Balaknama.
All the journalists at the newspaper are street children, many of whom are illiterate, and report on stories about other street children.
Jyoti grew up on the street and through her work at Balaknama she has now moved herself and her mother into an apartment.
Jyoti had been scouted by Balaknama and became one of its star reporters.
“Everything I write is a reflection of my own life and that's difficult,” she said.
“In my life before I became a reporter, no one in my house showered, everyone was so dirty. When I took a bath, it felt strange.”
Five years ago, Balknama were riding the crest of some big successes - their pioneering first paper was getting attention and one of their stories - an expose about police officers forcing street kids to retrieve the bodies of suicide victims from train tracks - sparked a major investigation.
Five years later, Jyoti and other Balknama journalists have survived the Delta variant wave that claimed more than 500,000 lives in India.
Now 21, Jyoti is earning a salary as an outreach teacher, bringing education directly to the street kids living in Delhi’s slums. And she’s secured a safe, one-room flat for herself and her mother - a feat of upward mobility rare in India.
Her mother, Sunita, is immensely proud.
“My husband passed away, my son passed away. Jyoti is such a girl…from living a life of hell, she put a roof over my head, and now looks after me as a husband would,” she said.
Jyoti doing outreach work on the streets of Delhi.
Jyoti is focused on her work and education - marriage for the 21-year-old is not a priority. Her mother is supportive of her priorities, although she jokes that potential in-laws would be shocked at Jyoti’s lack of cooking skills.
“What will they think your parents taught you?!” Sunita asks. To this, Jyoti replies, “I’d say that my parents taught me how to earn a living.”
Remarkably, through writing the stories of other children’s lives, Jyoti has also managed to rewrite her own story.
