Missionary NGO’s Hijacking Hindu Kids to Fill Orphanages

NGOs ‘hijack’ tribal kids to fill orphanages
By Jose Kurian – www.expressbuzz.com

SULTHAN BATHERY: It all boils down to making up the numbers. Cashing in on the harrowing situation of tribal communities, NGOs mushrooming in the district are on a massive hunt for tribal kids — to fill their orphanages and institutions.

A few norms and regulations are violated in the bargain, but no matter. But why this frenzied ‘rounding-up’ of orphans in farflung tribal hamlets? Simple. The NGOs just don’t want to pass up a heaven-sent chance to get their hands on the huge sums of funds from various national and international agencies.

Take the plight of five children from Panthikkal Adiya tribal settlement at Chekadi, a hamlet near Pulppalli. Though transfer certificates (TCs) had been issued to four of them to 4th standard and the fifth to 3rd standard from the alternative school at Thazhassery, the missionary group based at Sulthan Bathery admitted them only in the 1st standard.

Violating all educational norms, the children were admitted at the aided school, allegedly after fabricating documents, though the TCs had been issued to a government school. In effect, Mahesh, 10, and Sabitha, 8, Chinchu, 9, Anju, 10, and Vinod, 10, were all ‘hijacked’ to the institution, on the promise of free education and boarding.

“Though I gave them the TCs for admission to Government LP School, Moolankavu, they’ve been admitted at a private aided institution at Puthenkunnu,” says Peter, the head-teacher of the alternative school.

To Peter’s dismay, he found, during a visit to look up his former wards, their names missing from the Moolankavu school register.

After a prolonged search, the children were located at the Puthenkunnu school.

The headmaster at that school denied Peter permission to see the children, but obliged on the intervention of SSA District Programme Officer E P Mohandas and AEO Dominique Savio.

Peter told this website’s newspaper on Thursday: “Admitting them to the 1st standard not only amounts to denying their educational rights but also tarnishes the alternative education system.” Small wonder, the children seemed a scared and confused lot when this website’s newspaper visited the school.

A few years ago, an NGO based at Pathanamthitta recruited 52 children from 15 colonies through another agency. Except one, all of them failed to complete schooling, it is learnt. 

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