DEAF and dumb, his leg amputated and festering with wounds, Anamik lay helpless on the street-one of the street boys saw his plight and dialled Childline at 1098 in the middle of the night.
Volunteers who rushed to the site took the boy to hospital. Two months later, the 19-year-old had recovered and social workers were trying to rehabilitate him.
Childline was a 24-hour service in Mumbai exclusively for street children. Started by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, it was the only one of its kind in the country.
Though there were 28 NGOs in the city working with street children, often they did not know whom to contact in an emergency. Said Jaru Billimoria, who worked on the project, "We did a survey and found that this kind of service was necessary. Children love using the phone and they can reach Childline free of charge any time and get a response.
Childline had to respond to different types of emergencies: accidents, health-related calls; kids even called to say they were doing fine. Many others wanted to find a shelter, a few had problems with the police.
Street boys were trained to monitor the calls since it was felt they responded best to another of their kind. Childline received nearly 50 calls daily.
"The street children have come to know about this service through volunteers, NGOs and word of mouth," said Billimoria. "In the first three months we didn't even go to the press because we wanted the street children to know about it first and get familiar."
Following the success of the venture there were plans to start similar services in other cities as well.

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