Market of Joy

Bablu Hansda s/o – Mangal Hansda, a resident of Hirapur village, Shikaripara block of Dumka district was working as a casual paid labour (CPL) in 51 RCC, Himank Project of BRO on Karu Tangse Road at Ladakh. He suffered a cardiac arrest and passed away on 23rd July...

On 7th February, 2021 a major landslide in Chamoli glacier happened in Uttarakhand with many migrant workers falling prey to nature’s fury. Little did Hemanti Devi, a resident of Chokad village of Ramgarh district know that her husband would be one of them and her...

Middle School Kachahri Balua in Banmankhi block of Purnea district was a reputed school with a big campus and good buildings and classrooms. However, sanitation and hygiene at the school rendered it helpless against the threats of the virus. The school infrastructure,...

Manjoliya village, located 3kms from the block headquarter in Sakra has seen a remarkable feat of pond rejuvenation by its community members. One of the village’s rain-fed ponds, surrounded by 60 Scheduled Caste households, had turned into a dumping space for...

For 3 hours a day, 10 year old Arifa collects reusable garbage. She does it because she’s told to, and not because she’s aware that it’s sold to provide for her family of three older sisters and a one-year-old brother. She’s a girl, and hence, doesn’t need to be...

Along the Uttar Pradesh Border, buried in the by lanes of Bhowapur, is a learning centre run by Phia Foundation, for children from the rag picking community that lives in its fringes. The children come from make-shift houses, constructed on mounds on garbage, which...

Hemlata, twenty years old and married is another Internet Saathi who is transforming the skills she learnt to the women in village Bhagwanpur. She takes a lot of pride in helping other women to learn the internet. None of the women in the village own a mobile phone....

Kiran Devi lives in Bhowapur’s ragpicker colony, on the outskirts of Delhi. She gets up early every day and works long hours sorting out rubbish and classifying it in different categories so it can be sold. Kiran now sends all five of her children to school every day...

Their daughter Kajal was only three months old when she died of malnutrition. Manoj Ravidas and Pratima Devi work as ragpickers in a slum community in Bhowapur on the outskirts of Delhi. Living in such appalling conditions, on a garbage dump, it’s hardly surprising...

Amit Kumar, 15, has no doubt he would be working as a child labourer without the support of PHIA Foundation partner Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan. Instead, during seven years of coming to the A-Block Children’s Shelter, run by Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan in the Motia Khan area...

Muskan takes us inside the improvised, ramshackle slum dwelling she calls home, and pulls aside the curtain that leads into the bedroom she shares with her mother and siblings. Except there aren’t actually any beds. ‘I sleep wherever I can find a bit of room – there’s...

Manual scavenging, the process of removing, carrying and disposing of human excrement from dry latrines by hand, is inhumane and illegal in India. However, many thousands of people find themselves and their families trapped in this work. Manual scavenging is a...