HISTORY

In 1980, struck by the extremely harsh life situations of thousands of children and young people who barely survived and eked out a living on the streets of the city of Bangalore, a handful of students of Kristu Jyoti College, Bangalore launched a weekend initiative – Project Outreach – that offered a glimmer of safety, care, and friendship to these children. The programme quickly caught the imagination of their friends, their college authorities and colleagues and soon grew into a daily intervention that offered the children spaces and opportunities for recreation, rest, study, medical care, fun-times, counseling, outings and sowed the seeds of motivation and the possibility of a life different from the deprived and vulnerable lives that they had known or had been used to.

BOSCO Yuvakendra – a drop-in centre, a nodal point for all activities, a place where children could meet and interact with caring adults – was the next step.  It soon grew to be a favorite hangout for hundreds of street kids – a safe and friendly place to drop in, to play, to have some music and dance, to have a bath, to get medical attention, learn to read and write, or try their hand at painting or some other skills, to sleep a while and to have a listening ear or a shoulder to lean on.

What began as an amateur weekend initiative, is today a multi-pronged organization with 10 different centres in the city of Bengaluru. We offer vulnerable, deprived children and young people holistic, multi-dimensional programmes ensuring safety, care, protection and the possibility of development and growth into “fullness of life”.