A NEW Forest woman who has championed a children's charity for 20 years has been to India to see where some of her money has been going.

Retired geography teacher Margaret Champion and husband Ray, a former management consultant, have returned to Lymington from Delhi buoyed up by what they saw.

The couple have contributed to ActionAid for 20 years, first sponsoring the education of individual children up to secondary level in Gambia, Nigeria and West Bengal.

About three years ago they began putting money into ActionAid's Next Step scheme instead.

When they went on holiday to India recently they decided to visit the organisation's Childhood Enhancement Through Training and Action (CHETNA) project, which reaches 800 children in Delhi.

In Delhi there is a large population of street children who have to go out and work for pitifully low wages because their fathers cannot find work.

They turn their hands to selling beads, acting as market couriers, working as servants and even cleaning out toilets in the homes of the wealthy.

The situation is worsened by drought which is driving an estimated 2,000 people a day from rural districts into Delhi, where they move into flats with friends, live in shanty towns or simply bed down on the pavements.

Instead of providing schools for Delhi's street children, CHETNA helpers take education to the children in their workplace.

Lessons empower the children, teaching them their rights and building up confidence.

The ActionAid centre basement is opened at night for use as a dormitory

One lad is to lead a deputation of 14 to the chief minister in Delhi to tell him of their needs, and that includes opening up areas of other public buildings for safe night-time accommodation.

"It is very dangerous for the children on the streets because they are vulnerable to abuse, especially the girls. They are subject to a great deal of harassment," said Mrs Champion.

At the ActionAid activities centre she found computers and children with good reading skills in English.

"It gave me a ray of hope to see what they were doing in a small way, but it seemed to have quite an effect.

"The street children in the centre were clean, they were happy and they were being given a chance in life that they wouldn't otherwise have had."

Contributors to ActionAid pay £180 a year, usually by monthly direct debit payments. Telephone 01460 238027.

First published: May 23