MUMBAI: A thoughtful intervention will take a Mumbai child’s imagination across the ocean to faraway lands. India Post has just released a unique set of postcards made by the children of Kamathipuracommercial sex workers. The 10 postcard sets were released by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari at Raj Bhavan on Saturday evening in a small function attended by postal officers, children and social workers.
Each postcard contains a QR code that, when scanned, describes the child’s thoughts behind the painting, although it does not reveal the child’s name to protect his identity. For example, the photograph of a woman with a moustache drawn by a 14-year-old girl reflects the dual identity of every woman in Kamathipura, who has had to play the role of both mother and father to her children.
A stark painting featuring a child on a swing hanging from a tree is about the simple innocence of childhood, which the artist says she has always craved.
The set of postcards is packed in an envelope, which has a QR code linked to an article done by TOI last month, in which the ‘safe location’ was earlier reported. Post Office Launched in the oldest red light district of Mumbai. Kamathipura Gali No 8 Post Office, Offer Base Card enrollment, banking services and schemes for women who are largely trafficked from Bangladesh. It is manned by women trained to assist commercial sex workers who were previously uncomfortable with interacting with male postal workers, who were not always respectful to them.
This post office now ensures that the children of sex workers who do not have a birth certificate or verification of paternity, get Aadhaar cards. All they need is a certificate from their school or from an NGO or a local councillor. Since its launch, the Kamathipura Post Office has issued around 1,700 Aadhaar cards and opened 75 savings bank accounts for a community that was previously in the hands of exploitative middlemen. Apart from delivering mail, the Indian Postal Department provides a range of services directed to the lowest income groups of India through 1.5 lakh branches across the country.
The postcard set, priced at Rs 180, the brainchild of Mumbai’s Postmaster General Swati Pandey, will be available at select post offices and the postage stamp section of the Main General Post Office. It will be the latest colorful offering for stamp collectors as well as those who are charmingly deaf to the world that prefers to connect via beeps.
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