News
Mariam - Update
Read here the latest news on Mariam since the article about her in the Sunday Times.
A life in the day: Mariam Laskar, 42, a sex worker in Kalighat, the poorest red-light district in Kolkata
Andrea Catherwood, Times Online - 17 May 2009
I was trafficked here when I was 14 by a man who married me. His real wife and children were here in Calcutta, and he brought me here. He sold me to a brothel. I was terrified, but he was my husband and I thought I had to do what he said. I did not have the guts to tell my family what had happened to me, so I never contacted them again.
My shock at meeting slumdog boys my family sponsors
Andrea Catherwood, Times Online - 10 May 2009
Slum life is brutal and squalid: water from a pump, one lavatory for 20 families, no privacy, no respite from the heat, the filth and the stench. We're followed by hoards of children who casually stone stray dogs. Atunu's mother, nervous and tired, shows me the one cramped room her family shares with two other adults.
There are no possessions other than a thin mattress, some pots and a kerosene stove. Clothes strung along a line provide a makeshift curtain. Shubo's home is worse - a 3ft wide shack that is home for two families.
Biggins on fighting poverty
BBC - 1 April 2009
Christopher Biggins meets two of the children whose educational needs are covered by sponsorship from Christopher. On visiting Calcutta, Christopher descibed the sight of seeing children and pigs rummaging round a rubbish tip as 'Armageddon'. He asked how our world leaders could meet to discuss 'recession' and not discuss ways of putting an end to such abject poverty.
Come Dine With Me Winner Christopher Biggins donates to The Hope Foundation.
BBC Two Daily Politics - 1 April 2009
Come Dine With Me Winner Christopher Biggins donates to The Hope Foundation.
One of our patrons, Christopher Biggins, recently took part in the popular reality television series Celebrity Come Dine With Me. The program involves each participant cooking for the group on consecutive nights and then rating the other contestants’ dinner parties. The winner receives £1000 to donate to a charity and luckily for us Christopher won, selecting The Hope Foundation for Street Children to receive his donation. Christopher is intending to visit the projects in the slums of Kolkata in March and has already set up a bursary for
two children from one of our crèches.