Indian Slum Children Create Their Own Tabloid Newspaper

A NEWSPAPER is giving a voice to children from India’s slums - by employing them as reporters.  Translated as ‘Voice of Children’, Balaknama is run and edited by street children, many of whom are former drug addicts despite their tender age. The newspaper focuses on children living and working on the streets, who report on the conditions experienced by them and their acquaintances in day-to-day life - and has carried exposes of child labour and police malpractice. The newspaper is closely associated with local centres that provide rehabilitation, education and essentials to children with no one else to turn to, run by NGOs such as the Federation for Street and Working Children and Childhood Enhancement through Training and Action.

Videographer / director: Shams Qari
Producer: Haziq Qadri, Ellie Winstanley
Editor: Ian Phillips