Rehabilitating trafficked children; feeding migrant workers; Tamil folk musicians in Hollywood—Our top stories of the week

Chennai organisation giving trafficked children a life of choice

Indian Community Welfare Organisation (ICWO), headed by AJ Hariharan, has partnered with 38 NGOs in all 38 districts of Tamil Nadu to build a network of local resource persons and rescue trafficked children from the smaller towns and villages in the state. 

About 80% of the children they rescue come from other states, including Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Rajasthan. These children either flee their homes and are picked up by agents at railway stations, or their families are lured with the promise of financial security.

Since its launch in January 2020 in Chennai, ICWO’s Anti Human Trafficking Club, along with the Tamil Nadu Child Labour Task Force, has rescued and rehabilitated 168 children—mostly boys—from factories in and around Chennai, and five girls who were trafficked and sexually exploited at work. 

Delhi brothers offer food, healthcare to migrant workers.

Tirlochan Singh founded Veerji da Dera in 1989 following his retirement and committed his life to serving the underprivileged. After he passed, his sons—Brigadier Premjit Singh Panesar and Kamaljeet Singh—took over to continue their father's legacy.

The organisation offers basic medical assistance through footpath clinics via a van where doctors treat 350-400 migrant workers daily. The brothers have set up five footpath clinics that operate from 7 am to 8.30 am every day in Delhi’s Chandni Chowk, ISBT, Tilak Nagar, Lodhi Garden, and Jangpura areas. Additionally, they organise free food distribution through langars.

Meet the folk artists who took a local percussion instrument to Hollywood

Manimaran and his folk ensemble Buddhar Kalai Kuzhu, which he runs with his wife Magizhini, played the parai for Emmy awardee Ava DuVernay’s latest film, Origin.

The parai artists have come a long way—from performing at small village ceremonies to scoring music for Tamil films with encouragement from composers such as AR Rahman and Santhosh Narayanan.

Following their latest breakthrough into the American film industry, Manimaran tells SocialStory that his goal is and always will be to take the humble percussion instrument—which has become a symbol of anti-caste resistance—to the world.

Thrissur students tinker their way into a bright future in STEM

Ashwathy NG, Annliya Deepak, and Maria CJ of St Paul’s CEHSS, a school in Kuriachira in Kerala’s Thrissur district, have spent the past year developing a smart farming system. The project combines an Arduino UNO-based automatic irrigation system with components such as ultrasonic sensors, servo motors, buzzers, processing software, a soil moisture sensor, a relay module, and a water pump model.

The model blends innovation with social impact—addressing the man-animal conflict as well as water scarcity.

The students came up with the model after hours of hard work in the Atal Tinkering Lab on their school premises, sometimes working beyond class hours and into weekends. Read more about their innovation here.