Catherine Hope Center is always teeming with activity as the children give us a slice of their experiences that they face in the society as young citizens. As a part of the Change Ambassadors Programme, a one-on-one counselling session was held for our students so that our staff could understand the problems being faced by the children in schools and their homes. They were given an opportunity to share things openly, especially personal issues that they were going through. 

To our dismay, we came to know that the children were facing many serious issues, a few of them follows-

1. A boy was crying because his mother beats him and he struggles with a severe inferiority complex.
2. Some boys were found to be addicted to adult-only content. They are taken to the riverside to watch pornographic contents.
3. Most of the children complain that their parents often quarrel and fight leading to a chaotic and stressful environment at home.
4. Some of them reported that the fathers come home intoxicated and refuse to fulfil the basic needs of the family.
5. Some boys feel haunted and scared after watching horror movies. Such fear keeps them up at night.
6. Some children are forced into taking tobacco and ultimately being addicted to it.
7. Some children are forcibly taken into gangs by other young boys in the area who are a very bad influence to society as a whole.
8. They are forced into addictive games like PubG, Free Fire, etc for free at first and then money is being collected from the boys to play.
9. Some boys do not get back home even to sleep. They tend to sleep on the streets with their gang leader. That is the level of influence these young men have over the kids.
10. Some children reported that if they do not become a part of the illegal activities they are mocked. In this process many innocent kids are affected.

Because of the above reasons the staff at the Center find it challenging to counsel the children on a one-on-one basis when they are heavily influenced by the youth of that area. Therefore our staff have been receiving skillful training to handle and counsel the students. It is truly heartening and amazing to see the students open up to their teachers.