Netra (upper kindergarten), Swarana (lower kindergarten), and Vinod (2nd grade), are new to us, and we met them through one of the moms in our street program. Their dad is a day laborer at the market and their mom sometimes washes pots and pans at restaurants. They have six children, and Netra and Vinod were obviously underfed and quite thin. Mom and dad struggle to care for their kids and, except for their one-year-old, asked if we would take their youngest. All three kids started school this week with our other kids.
Jyothi had been scheduled to move in this past May -- the same time that the other kids arrived, along with her sister Latta -- but at the last minute, her parents hesitated and then decided to keep Jyothi with them for one more year. Recently, mom got a job as a cleaning lady (more on that later) and instead of hauling Jyothi with her to work every day, she asked if she could send Jyothi to KM to start nursery school.
