Udayan Care

My name is Ayan. I am 11 years old and will be starting 6th grade soon. I live in the United States. I currently reside in San Diego, California and I live with my mom, dad and my 5 year-old sister. I like to play tennis and I also play the sitar and guitar. My other favorite things to do include reading graphic novels and playing with my sister. I came to Udayan Care while on a trip to India. I stayed at my Nani and Nana’s house in Delhi. I visited Udayan Care because my mom is a brain scientist who works with children at Udayan Care and I wanted to see what it was like. Udayan Care is a place that cares for kids who are without their parents. I wanted to interact with the children and to see their lifestyle. I wanted to see how their lives were different from mine. I understood it after seeing how the children lived and what activities they did on an everyday basis. The home that I visited had 15 children living together. So that was a very different experience for me. They all seeme

Together, let’s make families stronger! “Family is a life jacket in the stormy sea of life,” says J.K. Rowling in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. In fact, the entire Harry Potter series is based on the theme of familial bonds. Harry finds his family with friends, teachers, and mentors despite losing his parents as an infant. They stick with him through thick and thin and always have his back. With the support of his newfound family, Harry grows up and eventually goes on to form a loving family of his own. Family relationships are the foundation of our future relationships. The family unit is a source of care, protection, love, and affection. All of us need a support system to succeed in life and family is a space where this support can most sincerely be felt. However, not everyone gets a chance to grow up in a conventional family structure. Creating a family-like environment for Out-of-Homecare children While every child has a right to grow up in a family environment, UNICEF

Komal lost her father in 2012 and her brother, who is an auto driver, supported the family after their father’s demise. She wanted to be a Chartered Accountant and despite the lack of necessary financial resources her mother and brother encouraged her to join the CA course. She used to cover long distances on foot as she had no money to travel. A dream does not become reality through magic, it takes determination, hard work, and the right kind of intervention. For Komal, the intervention came in the form of the Udayan Shalini Fellowship (USF) program. USF helped her through monetary and mentoring support. The change USF brought in her life has changed the fate of her coming generations. Today, she is a qualified CA working as a Management Trainee in the Finance Dept of Vedanta Limited on a 12 Lakh per annum package.  CSR to improve the status of education in India  The 4th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) calls for ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting li

Volunteer With Udayan Care: We Make Young Lives Shine! Have you ever wondered why a flock of geese flies in a V formation? If you search for the answer, you will find it is an excellent example of a sense of community. Flying in this way conserves energy as each bird flies slightly higher than the bird in front of it which reduces the wind resistance, thus making it easier for the other birds to fly. The birds also take turns flying in the front and falling back when they get tired. It also helps to keep track of every bird and if a bird gets sick two other geese break away from the flock and stay with it, either until it dies or is strong enough to rejoin the group. This can teach us some fascinating lessons about volunteering and working together as a community. Just like the birds share a common goal, our goal should be to uplift the underserved sections of society. One such way is to volunteer with people or organizations who are involved in various acts of social service. Imagine

Prakash, a child from Udayan Care, recently flew to Scotland to do an M.Sc. in Finance at the University of St. Andrews with a full scholarship. Shraddha, a recipient of the Udayan Shalini Fellowship, took a step closer to her dream of pursuing a career in robotics by securing a place in Mechanical Engineering at VIT Pune. Rayees, a LIFT (Learning In Fellowship Together) fellow, is working to improve the mental health of Care Leavers in J&K by forming an association of Care Leavers. Prakash, Shraddha, and Rayees received the greatest gift of education and now they are productive members of society enlightening others after them. Many children like them grow up in disadvantaged backgrounds and education is the only way to make their lives shine. It opens multiple paths of opportunities for them following which they can lead a stable life. However, not everyone gets the gift of education, which is why supporting the cause of children’s education is crucial to our society. Why should

The Govt. of Bihar is totally committed to strengthening its child protection mechanisms and towards this, it is open to learning the good practices in other states. A delegation of nine child protection functionaries that include members of the Child Welfare Committee, District Child Protection Unit, State Child Protection Society, Social Welfare Department and Child Protection Officer from UNICEF Bihar visited Delhi over a period of 3 days (18-21 May 2022). Udayan Care had facilitated this learning visit and delegates were given exposure to the UdayanGhar unique model of child andyouth care with aftercare being totally integrated into its design and implementation. Delegates also visited the aftercare homes for boys and girls, being managed by the Govt of Delhi and had an interaction with the officers of the Delhi Govt’s state Child Protection Society. The delegates also met with institutes such as Aurobindo Ashram and GMR institutes which provide skilling and employability opportuni