Rag Pickers

Who are the rag pickers ?

In Chennai city alone there are come more than 10,000 rag pickers, They carry bags and collect waste materials like rusted pieces of metals like iron, aluminum, waste papers, and plastic materials etc. They browse street after street and garbage's and gutters to collect waste materials.

Many of them have no home and family, relatives, friends and social links others than street level and garbage level connections and as pavement dwellers, Many of them are children who are deserted by parents and are forced in to this work.

Structurally, the rag pickers from the informal sector managing the recycling work, which in other countries is managed by government agencies. This trade requires no skill and one can earn more money than other skilled and unskilled child labor's. Children and young adults are introduced to the work for making money. Our personal interaction with waste collectors reveal that most of them are coolies ( daily wage workers ).

These people are lingering among the below poverty line, these people are most backward and least considered and cared unrecognized the work without any job security, dignity or any safety gear, exposure to health hazards, harassment and abuses on the streets.

Our focus ought to on :

1). Creation of self -awareness in every rag picker or waste collector.

2). Shelter,recreation and unification with the main stream of the society.

3). Change of job and opportunities for education and other assistance to empower them when they seek for it.

4). Redemption from the slavery of rag - picking and waste collecting.

5). To restore the happy childhood of these children.