Drop-in-Center for Street Children

Rawalpindi

Drop-in-Center, Dastak has been established with the collaboration of Wordlvision in August 2005 in Rawalpindi. Center catering to the needs of   Street living children and  Street Working children in Rawalpingi. Dastak providing a variety of services to the children who are visiting the centers.

Facilities provided at DIC:

Health Care: Health care is the most important feature of DASTAK for run away children as they are malnourished, denial of hygienic facilities and improper personal hygiene and health care for example clean water, washing and bathing facilities etc. They have difficult approach to the medical facilities provided by the government hospitals or private setups (hospitals, clinic and dispensaries).These children don’t know how to protect themselves from different types of diseases and what they should do when they are suffering from different illness.

 At DIC we are trying to spread awareness among these children about prevention of diseases, which includes health education, personal hygiene, sex education and proper nutrition.  The second thing is the treatment of diseases i.e. availability of a doctor, routine checkups, investigations, proper medication, follow-ups and referral in serious cases.       

Regular OPD sessions: - Usually two OPD sessions are conducted daily. Children presented different complaints. After proper examination by the doctor mild to moderate intensity of diseases are treated respectively. Acute emergencies and chronic cases after initial evaluation are referred towards the child friendly doctors of various public hospitals of Rawalpindi with social motivators/doctor for further treatment.

Follow-ups: After proper checkup children suffering different diseases are provided medications. Daily follow-ups are recommended to know the improvement in their health status.

Provision of Medicines: DASTAK is equipped with all necessary surgical equipments as well as all essential medicines including antibiotics, antipyretics, antimalarial, antihalments, cough syrups, antacids, painkillers, antiseptics, skin preparation, and multi vitamins.

Computerized database of treatment records: A comprehensive computerized database is managed of all the children visiting DASTAK included the record of treatment provided to them. Follow ups are also maintained separately for monitoring purposes.

Tertiary care: A referral network is established for tertiary care, children with serious and chronic problems are referred to public hospitals for further investigation and treatment.

On call medical assistance at the spot in emergency: DASTAK also provides outdoor treatment facility to street children. Some time in emergency cases when we receive call that our registered child is injured or seriously ill we provide him medical assistance at the spot and transportation to the nearest hospital. 

Evaluation of the medical status of children shows that most of the children were suffering from respiratory tract infection, which was accompanied by fever, shivering, cough, runny nose, sore throat and chest pain. This huge percentage was due to poor nutrition, solvent abuse, lack of warm clothes and unavailability of night shelter particularly in winter.

The second biggest problem was skin infection and infected wounds that were due lack of personal hygiene and the second that they don’t care for small cuts and wounds which often infects. Gastro intestinal problems are also common because of unhygienic food and water, and solvent and substance abuse in particular. Moreover they can’t purchase proper food for them.

Health Education: - It is important to help children to understand the health risk they may encounter and the ways in which they can protect themselves, share information with each other and to take care of each other.

For this purpose health education sessions should be conducted, for example we can discus with them respiratory tract infections in which first of all we should ask them when they last time suffer from this disease and what was the symptoms. Secondly what they did when they were sick for example, visited a doctor, take help from their fellows or took any medicine.

In last we explain them what is respiratory tract infections, how they transmit, what are the symptoms and complications. How to prevent themselves and what they should do when they are suffering from that disease.

Nutritional meal: - Many street children suffer from malnutrition, so the provision of nutritionally balanced meal can make an important contribution. Children should be involved in shopping for food preparing the meals and cleaning up afterwards. This is a good opportunity to provide education on nutrition.

Psychosocial Counseling:Counseling is a process of interpersonal communication where the person with a need or problem is helped to understand his or her situation in order to make decisions on how to respond. Counseling is important for street children especially in times of crisis, such as sexual abuse or other forms of violence. Psychosocial counseling at DASTAK is provided to run away children with the goal to cater their emotional or behavioral problems and issues. The common problems of street living children with which a psychologist works include different kinds of abuses, behavioral and emotional problems and mental disturbances. The DASTAK currently offers a program indigenously designed to provide an educational and therapeutic environment for children with gratification of their special needs and medical concerns.

Non-Formal Education: Non-Formal Education was started at the center on repeated requests from children. The group, which is more interested in education, is of children working on the streets reasons being abject poverty and responsibility to earn in such a tender age to support large families.

Keeping in view the needs of these children the project team decided to start Non-Formal Education (NFE) sessions at the center. We observed that most or all of the children working on the street take short leave from their employers to daily attend the educational sessions.

Entertainment: While dealing with children entertainment could be a natural constituent. In DASTAK to provide a health environment to these children 2 hours are separated in their daily routine for Watching Film/TV. Special children shows, quizzes, cartoons, informative programs and different films are shown to children for their amusement.

Indoor Games: Almost all children play either one or other indoor game during their stay in center. The games offers by us included Cricket, Luddo, Carom Board and Cards for the healthy development of the children.