By GEOFFREY BEW
AN international child rescue centre has confirmed it is willing to take care of a 10-year-old Indian boy whose parents abandoned him in Bahrain.
The Goa-based El Shaddai is a charitable trust that works with neglected street children, orphans and those from poor or broken families.
It has residential shelters for abandoned youngsters and provides them with education and vocational training until they are old enough and capable of living independently.
A GDN reader earlier came forward with the suggestion that the centre would be ideal for Raja Thanee Prasad and officials agreed to look into the matter after being contacted about his case.
By GEOFFREY BEW
AN international child rescue centre has confirmed it is willing to take care of a 10-year-old Indian boy whose parents abandoned him in Bahrain.
The Goa-based El Shaddai is a charitable trust that works with neglected street children, orphans and those from poor or broken families.
It has residential shelters for abandoned youngsters and provides them with education and vocational training until they are old enough and capable of living independently.
A GDN reader earlier came forward with the suggestion that the centre would be ideal for Raja Thanee Prasad and officials agreed to look into the matter after being contacted about his case.
El Shaddai sponsorship manager Sheryl Fernandez yesterday said after studying the possibility the centre’s management has agreed they will take in Raja – if he can make it to India.
“We will accept the child, but if it is possible we would need some legal documents to be arranged,” she said. “We would like to take the child because we want to help him.
“We have children who are orphans and until they are grown up they stay with us.
“We can prepare him to go to school, Hindi is our language and we can also teach him English.”
Raja was abandoned by his Sri Lankan mother when he was two and left to fend for himself when his Indian father was deported last August.
He was born out of wedlock and was never officially registered, meaning he has no identity papers and is not allowed to leave the country.
The only way Raja can get those papers is if his father Prasad signs them, but he is not co-operating.
Mr Abdul Razzaq, an Indian friend of Raja’s father, is taking care of him in Manama, but does not have the means to look after him properly.
Raja also has an estranged uncle living in Bahrain who says he is too poor to help.
The Migrant Workers Protection Society (MWPS) has been providing financial support to the boy and trying to reunite him with his father.
El Shaddai trust has an office in the UK and international co-ordinators in Italy, Holland, Germany and the US.
The GDN has been inundated with e-mails from people in Bahrain and abroad, including the US, asking for information about how they can adopt Raja, but there is no law allowing expatriates to adopt children here.
MWPS action committee head Marietta Dias earlier said if the boy’s nationality can be proven, he would likely to go to a foster home in India.
Raja’s father, a laundry worker who had lived in Bahrain for 16 years, comes from Hardoi in Uttar Pradesh. It was earlier understood that he was planning to return to Bahrain to claim Raja, after being sent home by his sponsor, but he has not done so.
geoff@gdn.com.bh
