NAVAJEEVAN STATEMENT
Mumbai in popular literature is often termed as the ‘City of dreams’. While every city has its own dreamers, Bombay has its share of underdogs. This metropolis can rightly be termed as ‘Slum dog Millionaire’. Countless people live in the margins of the city engaged in excruciating activities, of which sex work is one which we cannot overlook. It isn’t difficult to ascertain that there is rarely any city free from sex work or prostitution. Bombay’s red light districts are vast: from Kamathipura to Bhiwandi, they span large areas. Through a critical look, we could understand that sex workers, most of them, did not enter into their profession with their own consent. They’ve been victims of the afore mentioned power nexus, thereby existing in the fringes of our societies, feeding a hunger that appears to be insatiable and never quenching.
The socio-economic-cultural setup of South Asia is a heterogeneous and shockingly unequal one. Gender, caste, class and religion, among others are the variable factors that influence the development of the subcontinent. We cannot exclude our cities, which include Bombay, from this architecture. Women, who are continuously pushed aside to the fringes, to gain material advancement, are prone to enter, due to necessities, into the frame of prostitution. And then to climb upwards from those whirls of violence and exploitation is almost impossible. The power structure is threateningly dominating and enslaving. They remain in the trade for years until they’re aged and termed obsolete. So do their children and thus the process enters a continuum.
Navjeevan Centre was initiated with the deliberation that this nexus had to be broken. Pondering and working over the possibilities over the years, the centre has grown to be a place where the children of commercially exploited sex workers can be housed, enabling them to study and grow up. What makes the Centre different from a conventional children’s home is that it places utmost priorities on giving the child a home—in a literal, not a metaphorical, sense. The grass root personnel involved, in the campus as well in the offices and pick up locations, include, House Parents, religious personnel, Missionaries, Social Workers and Volunteers, working as a committed community to aid in the holistic growth of the child. All the children at the centre attend the Navjyoti English Medium School located within the campus, live in distinct units headed by the respective House Parents until they’re adults. The children are thereby made more equipped to enter into the wider world, pursuing higher education and varied professions. The Centre has extension homes in Kalyan and a new extension home is under completion in Nerul, ensuring that a base for continuing academics is present for those students who cannot vouch for a support from elsewhere. The centre in its Murbad campus involves various new developments—including afforestation, agriculture (including fruit and vegetable cultivation, cattle and poultry farming), efficient water harvesting and many upcoming projects. It includes facilities for equipping our children for higher educational pursuits.
A walk through Grant Road in Bombay past midnight could easily reveal the darkness of life people have to endure, including sex workers. Their future appears bleak at the outset, and what are we going to do? Will we heed the call? Or turn back and retreat to our lives filled with cushions and cologne? The image of Christ bleeding to death on Calvary signifies innumerably vast pointers—the refusal to turn back, not to shut the door when there is knocking heard—such moves cannot be put to definite words. One way of remembering Christ is by extending our solidarity to those to whom he loved and lived with and died for: everyone at the margins. Not a single night is gentle for them out there. Every day they go on struggling for a better day. For all of us, the time is now—to instil confidence and hope in them. The end of this road comes when Navjeevan as an institution erases itself. And only then would our mission of continuously pouring jeevan—life—into the world be completely realized, the flame glowing luminously everywhere. We are lighted to lighten.
