In a dingy basement office in Delhi, a semi-circle of young teenagers sit on woven mats discussing the news. It is the monthly editorial meeting at Balaknama newspaper (Hindi for the “voice of children”), which is a newspaper produced by children who live and work on the streets.
About 90 batuni (oral) reporters, under 18 and mostly illiterate, collect stories for the eight-page tabloid, passing on news from their neighbourhoods to four writers and editors, who then verify the details and write the stories.
Kishan Rathore, 18, the newspaper’s editor, says those who can write send reports via WhatsApp, but Akash, 15, is at the office, in the Gautam Nagar area in the south of the capital, to pitch a story about the children who collect bottles from ditches for an off-licence. “Many times, I have brought to their notice the lack of a clean bathroom,” he says.
Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the newspaper has changed lives.
Seven years ago, after he lost his father, Rathore was sleeping rough in Delhi, selling cigarettes, when he met by chance someone from the Indian charity Childhood Enhancement through Training and Action (Chetna), who introduced him to the paper.
Chetna launched Balaknama in 2003 with the organisation Badhte Kadam (Stepping Forward) to report on Delhi’s estimated 80,000 street children.
“Today, I have the joy and pleasure of writing and publishing the stories of the street kid community, which is close to my heart,” says Rathore, who has a stipend from Chetna to study and now has a room in a shared house. He is one of more than 700 children who have worked on Balaknama.
Sold for 5 rupees (about 5p) and published in Hindi and English, the paper has a circulation of about 8,000 and is funded by Chetna, private donations and advertising.
The paper has reported on sexual abuse, malnutrition, police brutality and child labour. It has campaigned to get identity cards for street children so they have proof of residence, while its reports on substance abuse and street children being enlisted by police to pick up bodies from railway lines led to wider coverage and action from authorities.
Rathore has covered all types of stories – one about children being found dead near a city slum. “But I also reported on a 16-year-old girl living in the slums who was being educated by a benevolent neighbour, and used to take care of all the stray dogs in the neighbourhood.”
Jyoti slept under a flyover with her alcoholic father before becoming editor of Balaknama in 2015. “I was a rag-picker, struggling with drug addiction and other problems of living on the streets, including abuse,” she says.
Now 22, she teaches for Chetna and shares a flat with her mother. “One of my most impactful stories was where I reported on a contractor who hired young children to sell drugs and alcohol in a slum. The story led to the contractor not hiring the kids any more.”
Shambhu Kumar, 24, was a vegetable seller. He became an editor and is now studying for a psychology degreeat Indira Gandhi National Open University in Delhi. Kumar says: “I have seen my life transform – from getting beaten on the streets to living a life of dignity through education.
“I wanted my younger brothers to have a better life, and today they are both in regular schools, one in grade 9 and another in grade 12,” he says. “I could not have asked for more.”
