Over and above the provision of housing, clothing and food, the institutionalized development programmes for street children often do not have the capacity for recreational and cultural awareness and empowerment in their educational programmes. These programmes are essential for children to develop self- identity, healthy attitudes and value orientation in order to help them cope with issues in their personal lives and make impacting changes to social structures they are immersed in.

The vision of Music Basti is to establish and strengthen an egalitarian socio- economic order based on the democratic values of equality, sharing, cooperation and common good.

The mission of Music Basti in the concrete is to strengthen the voices of children, while raising awareness also on social global causes, such as control and management of natural resources, food sufficiency, gender equity, sustainable environment, health and education.

Based on these perceptions and principles, activities and programs of Music Basti are based on the following goals:

• To motivate, mobilize, train and sensitize the youth and music community to understand child rights and utilize the medium of music in order to protect and promote these rights.
• To develop a music program that motivates street children to be creative and enjoy childhood by learning and developing skills as well as attitudes; Promote participatory learning in the music program, where children through such a learning process experience togetherness, cooperation, harmony and common good.
• To build the capacity of institutions/NGOs working for child- care through an arts and music driven content and methodology to build the life-skills, attitudes and socio-cultural awareness of street children.
• To develop a partnerships approach and network with street children, youth volunteers, music communities, NGOs, government organizations, commercial and educational units.

It seeks to use music as a tool of personal empowerment in a community for these children who too have every right to enjoy their childhood, as a part of their healthy development and growth toward mature adulthood.

The aim of the present project is to empower street children who may be homeless or runaways to be creative and exercise their right to expression, to advance life skills development through music, and to promote eventual socio-economic justice to them irrespective of their caste, creed, religion or language in Delhi, through the medium of music.

Photo: Program at Hard Rock Cafe, Delhi, June 14th, 2010 

Photo by: Zafar Khurshid