The Government wanted to empty Shishur Sevay and fill it with new children. That was their plan. We simply would not allow that to happen and it didn’t.
In the life of every orphan child there is a time when suddenly every person, every place, every landmark they have known is gone! No thing and no one is familiar, and the orphan is powerless. That simply would not happen to the Daughters of Shishur Sevay. By the government’s intent, our older girls would be out on their own, living elsewhere. Our disabled girls over 18 would be housed in institutions. Our under 18 would be put up for adoption, ignoring that three girls are already 17 years and severely disabled. The fourth is 13 and the most severely impaired. But to these government officials who were under pressure to place children, our children were just inventory that needed to be moved to make room for new inventory. Gone would be everything that had allowed the our girls to thrive within a family/community of sisters, care-takers, aunts, “mummy”, the people they loved and who loved them. The tagline of our Shishur Sevay logo is, “To not Feel Alone in the Universe.” The orphan child, particularly the severely disabled child is certainly alone in the universe.
I’d known for a few years there would be a challenge as the new Juvenile Justice Act had removed the category of Small Group Homes from its hierarchy of care. Previously the small group home was the last stop before institutioalization. Under the Juvenile Justice Act, the insitutions are formed with groups of minimum 25 children, while the disabled children are in separate units of ten children each. There is no inclusion. Under the JJ Act, children are also segregated by age. Children under six years are the youngest, then 7-11 years, 12-18 years and after 18 they are released or moved to aftercare until 21, or at most 23 years. The JJ Act is/was developed to address the large numbers of children living on the streets, and the abuses that took place within the existing institutions at the time. My understanding is that small group homes were omitted because of expense. Our problem with the JJ Act was that it didn’t apply to us. When we were founded in 2006 we made the choice not to take government aid because that would require us to “discharge” our girls at 18. We have never taken government funds. We promised the girls permanence. The moment we took in the children with disabilities we understood we were committed to lifetime care.
Beginning in 2019 we met with government officials to argue we should not be licensed under the JJ Act because we did not meet the criteria. We lacked the required space. We even lacked beds because we were so small. We sleep on mats in the big room, myself included. Our census was 12 while the minimum was 25. Our ages range from 9 to 25 years, and we are inclusive — abled and disabled, younger and older, all living together in a family style. We were threatened with being closed down if we did not apply and receive JJ Act Registration. When we went to the people who could approve a women’s home they said we had to wait for all the girls to pass 18 years but we still could not be inclusive. To quote them, “You cannot have the handicaps and normals under the same roof.”