We work to provide residential comprehensive care homes in govt public spaces for the vulnerable children in street situations in India. The Rainbow Home program secures the basic rights of the street children through guaranteed education, nutrition, clothing, health care, recreation, love and support to ensure their reintegration into mainstream Indian society. The children are enrolled in regula
r school programs and age appropriate classes, usually after a short period of remedial teaching as well as by a wide volunteer base and buddy programmes with children/students in more privileged schools. The Rainbow Program also acts as a catalyst in the community, encouraging other school drop-outs and poor children from nearby slums and shanties to attend school without fear of stigma and reproachment. The Rainbow Homes program offers a solution that is both simple, cost-efficient and structural: existing school buildings are converted into homes where 80-100 children can live together with housemothers and caring staff. The Rainbow Homes provide a safe environment, food, love and attention, health care, social interaction and education. After a bridge course, the children go to a regular school, where they attend classes with their peers from 'middle class' Indian families. When they are 18-20 years old, they have completed their regular school, learned to live in a social structure, learned to become the owner of their life and future, and they are able to participate in mainstream Indian society. We are now witnessing the first successes of older children who started to build their own independent future. The rules and procedures on how to manage a Rainbow Home have been laid down in manuals, we have a system of timely and transparent reporting on the basis of Key Performance Indicators and a Big-4 auditing company conducts annual financial audits. The Rainbow Homes model is managed through a network as a franchise formula with local organizations / NGOs. In each city (six to date), we set up 3-5 such Rainbow Homes with partner NGOs. This creates a network that can jointly lobby with the government and learn from each other’s experiences. There is an on-going training program for the home staff. We follow a rights based approach, i.e. the right of the child is central in all activities. Also we believe that this problem can only be solved gradually if the children can actually be brought to a social position. These aspects make our model very powerful. We have set up 45 Rainbow Homes over the past few years that currently provide a home and new future for more than 3,500 children. The ambition is 10,000 children in 2018. The Indian government has officially adopted our model in its policy in 2011. Since last year the government is also setting up homes according to the Rainbow Home model. This proofs the catalyst effect and scalability of our program of which we expect much more in the coming years. Government funding and sponsoring by Indian companies and wealthy individuals of our 30 Rainbow Homes also gets going, but not yet as fast as we would like it to be. In order to achieve our ambition, we are therefore still in need for support from various organisations, charities, individuals and institutions.
