Grace Crèche is one of the projects of the Santoshpur Grace Community Centre through which we impart healthy education at free of coast to about 40 pre-school children of poor and needy families living in the slums of Nandan Kanan, Chit Kalikapur, Rajapur, Tin Number, Eastern Park and their neighbouring areas, irrespective of caste, creed and religion. These slums are mostly inhabited by the Scheduled Caste people. Majority of them have migrated from the Islands of Sundarbans. Many of the families have one parent only. This is due to the fact that the Husband has abandoned his wife and children after a few years of their marriage. The average number of children in each family is three. They live in the rented houses or cottages built on the sides of the roads or Disposal Canals. As a result the area is highly anti-hygienic and full of mosquitoes. Children of the families suffer from Dysentery, Skin Disease and ENT problem all throughout the year. Most of their parents do not have any job on a regular basis. In most of these families, fathers work as daily labourer or rickshaw puller and mothers work as maid-servants at middle-class families. But most of the male members are addicted to alcohol and gambling, which consume all their daily earnings. A five-member family has to survive with an average monthly family income of Rupees One Thousand only. Most of them are illiterate. According to their conception, providing education to their children is luxury. A few of their children attended schools in their childhood but could not continue due to financial crisis and lack of their parents’ interest in education. Parents want their children also to help the family financially through child labour. 

Through Grace Crèche we are ministering to the pressing needs of these children by providing them with proper food, education and recreation during the time they spend at the Crèche.  The Grace Crèche runs five days a week (Monday to Friday) from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM. They have separate time for games, recreations and watching movies. These children are provided with food for Breakfast, Lunch and afternoon Tiffin; School uniforms to wear; proper hygienic bath; basics of academic and moral education; healthy and skilful recreation. A paediatric doctor visits the Crèche once a week for their medical check-ups and to provide them with proper medicines. We also conduct a parents meeting quarterly, when the kids perform what they have learnt during in the Crèche. We also give moral lessons to their parents so they understand their responsibility of upbringing their own children. They go home after having a delicious meal at the Crèche with their parents.