Salaam Baalak City Walk – New Delhi

The Salaam City Walk is a guided tour around New Delhi Railway Station and Paharganj area in which former street children share their personal story of survival with the participants and show them one contact point and shelter home Salaam Baalak Trust provides.

Since about five years it is run by Salaam Baalak Trust (SBT) - a non-profit organization, taking care of street- and former street-children in Delhi. Through this program the young guides get an opportunity to improve their communication, presentation and marketing skills independently.

The Walk aims to sensitize people to the lives of street children and helps to provide a deeper insight into street life from people who have experienced it themselves.

Often people who are coming to Delhi from Europe or the Western World don’t get in touch with the problems street children are facing in India. During the Walk the participants get to know another side of Delhi. They will learn about:

- why children run away from home,
- how they learn to survive on the street,
- how they even enjoy their life on the street because they are independent,

and how eventually they can choose their future over this freedom.

Some of the children have taken the opportunity to change their lives and now they are going to university, studying different languages, working as professional photographers or for example as tour guide for The Walk.

The Walk takes place Monday to Saturday at 10am in Delhi. All proceeds go directly to the trust to enable more opportunities to be made for street children -so the walk is 100% non-profit making.

External links

• Salaam Baalak Trust Homepage - City Walk
• See here for a Trailer of City Walk
• Article in The Telegraph, 19 March 2010
• The international ecotourism society article, 24 November 2009
• Children Rights India