What We Do

Love and Life is currently working in Mumbai where conditions are very desperate. Huge slums areas, over-population, official corruption and very few available resources to fill the needs of such large numbers of people are continuous problems. The monsoon season is particularly perilous with buildings collapsing, gutters overflowing, trains halting due to flooded tracks and piles of rotting garbage. These conditions spread diseases like malaria and dengue fever and the slums fill with people who need medical assistance.



Children do heavy labor from early ages.


Dr. Susana Macri, founder & director of Love and Life, came to India more than 20 years ago from Brazil. When she first started visiting India she had been working in the fabellas of Sao Paolo, Brazil - one of the most critical areas in the world for children suffering from violence and abuse. In India she saw people in extreme conditions of starvation and need and made a vow to herself to do something to alleviate their suffering. As a medical doctor with a strong sense of humanity, she set to work to reduce the suffering and has permanently resided in India since 1999.

She first worked for five years in the remote areas of Andhra Pradesh, paying special attention to the dalit communities (untouchables). When her life was increasingly threatened by the mafia and corrupt officials, she relocated her work to Mumbai in 2004. She then became aware of sexual trafficking of children from Nepal to India, especially to the brothels of Kamatipura in Mumbai. Girls from 4 to 12 years old were being trafficked to Kamatipura, a huge area in downtown Mumbai where thousands of women and children are forced to work as sex slaves. Compounding this shock was the fact that Indian culture denied this problem existed, since it is taboo to discuss the sexual trafficking of children.

She also discovered another cruel reality - that thousands of children living at Mumbai ‘s railway stations were working for people belonging to mafia groups. The children were routinely manipulated and abused and made to jump from train to train to sell everything from plastic bags to fancy items, Since the possibility of the children escaping from this type of a life is very low, psychologically most of the children are broken at an early age.

Love and Life is committed to stopping: the trafficking of children; child abuse; using children as forced laborers; and malnutrition. We are currently trying to get a correct assessment of number of children who are suffer from the lack or their basic human needs - food, shelter, education and, the most important, protection. We invite everybody to participate in a conscious and committed movement centered around these goals. You can help us with your support to we can become a strong group where the children can find real help and regain their hope and trust. You can become an active member of Love and Life by sharing material things or by helping with your time and information. Your active participation is very important. We are sure that we can work together to create an awareness of childrens’ needs for protection, love and care.



Young girls going to work selling colorful plastic bags on trains.


Love and Life works by:

First - identifying the critical places to work in, such as Gorai Khadi, a slum area northwest of Mumbai, where more than 18 villages face difficulty in just securing clean drinking water, food, medical attention and educational support. Most of the men in the community die due to HIV or alcohol and their widows have to work as a labourers for 30 rupees per day (75 cents US), leaving the children exposed to lives of uncertainty.

Second - we visit slum areas where a lot of the children have physical or mental disabilities and mothers have been abandoned by their husbands because can’t cope economically and face the moral pressure from their own families and society.

Third - we find and help schools that are in critical economic straits, especially schools for children with physical and mental disabilities and schools for children whose parents can’t afford their child’s education.

Fourth - we identify children living on the street who have been physically or emotionally abused and mistreated
and see that medical assistance and protection is secured for these children.

We are able to fulfil these goals as a registered NGO (Children Care Charitable Trust Reg. E 24357) in India. This allows legal support and protection for children that need physical and moral protection.



Contact Us at:

Tel: 91-989 28 38 223
or  
E-mail:
childrenprotectionandcare@gmail.com

© 2007 by Lean Frog