Local Self Government and a one month old infant

A Supervisor of Manickal Gramapanchayath (LSG) called to our child helpline and passed the information that a one month old infant was being neglected by parents. Our team rushed to the spot to make a study of the actual situation. We found that its mother was mentally ill and the father was a drunkard.   

The situation of the child was pathetic and the family did not have a proper roof. As the mother was mentally ill, she was carrying the child with one hand precariously over the fire and often the infant was in danger. There was an elder child who was 11 years old and having only one pair of torn clothes to wear. The father was a drunkard and rarely reached home.  

Our team immediately sprang into action. With the help of the local self government members, the baby, with the mother and the elder child were rescued and brought to CHILDLINE office. The children were produced before the CWC (Child Welfare Committee) and shelter was arranged for the baby and mother at Mahilamandiram and the boy at our own shelter home.

  We collected the Transfer Certificate of the elder child after finding a children’s home in our locality and presently he is attending school regularly. The mother is being provided with treatment to bring her back to normalcy.  The baby too is safe now.

The Local Self Government’s involvement to help the family is indeed a model to be imitated across the state as it is often a rare example. They were indeed genuinely interested to provide help to the family. They also offered future support when necessary.

Looking back at the number of cases we have dealt with in the near past, we are surprised at the number of cases with mental health problems. It seems that the mental health of the people of Trivandrum is deteriorating.

 There is also another realization that psychiatric disorders among members of the family are a major reason for family break up across the state. There is absolutely no system to decipher such issues in the childhood and measures to provide early help to grow up gracefully with a realization of the problem and measures to take care of it before entering family life.