1. HOW WE PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY.
This privacy policy tells you how we collect, use and protect your personal information. By visiting our website, you accept and agree to the terms and conditions of this privacy policy. In particular, you consent to our collection and use of your personal information as described in this privacy policy.

2. MINORS.
We do not provide services or sell products to children. If you are below the age of 18, you may use our website only with the permission and the active involvement of a parent or legal guardian. If you are a minor, please do not provide us or other website visitors with any personal information.

3. THE TYPE OF INFORMATION WE COLLECT FROM YOU.
Like most places on the Internet, simply by visiting out website you automatically tell us certain information. This includes basic information such as your IP address, when you visited, the website from where you came prior to visiting us, the website where you go when you leave our website, your computer’s operating system, and the type of web browser that you are using. Our website automatically records this basic information about you.

And like many other websites, we may use cookies and clear GIFs to collect information about how our website is used. A cookie is a small data text file, which a website stores on your computer’s hard drive (if your web browser permits) that can later be retrieved to identify you to us.

Cookies were designed to help a website recognize a user’s browser as a previous visitor and thus save and remember any preferences that may have been set while the user was browsing the site. A cookie cannot be read by a website other than the one that set the cookie. A cookie cannot pass on a computer virus or capture any of the personally identifiable information that resides on your computer.

At times, we work with third-party service partners that employ clear GIFs (also known as pixel tags, single pixel GIFs, web beacons or action tags) for our benefit to help us measure advertising effectiveness. Clear GIFs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, and are used to track the online movements of our users.

The primary difference between the two is that clear GIFs are invisible on the page and are much smaller, about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Clear GIFs are not tied to your personally identifiable information and only track the visitor traffic and behavior to and on our website.

Our use of cookies and other tracking technologies allows us to improve our website and your web experience. We may also analyze information that does not contain personal information for trends and statistics.

We may also collect any data that you provide us by posting it at our website or by e-mail. You can always choose not to provide us with information. However, if you do withhold information, we may deny you access to some or all of our website’s services and features.

Some transactions between you and our website may involve payment by credit card, debit card, checks, money orders, and/or third party online payment services. In such transactions, we will collect information related to the transaction as part of the course of doing business with you, including your billing address, telephone number and other information related to the transaction.

4. WHAT WE DO WITH YOUR INFORMATION.
We use your information to operate our website’s business activities. For example, we may use this data to contact you about changes to our website, new services, or special offers, resolve disputes, troubleshoot issues, and enforce our website’s terms and conditions.

As a general rule, we will not give your data to third parties without your permission. However, there are some important exceptions to this rule that are described in the following paragraphs.

We may, in our sole discretion, provide information about you to law enforcement or other government officials for purposes of fraud investigations, alleged intellectual property infringement, or any other suspected illegal activity or matters that may expose us to legal liability.

Although we do not disclose individually identifiable information, we may disclose aggregate data about our website’s visitors to advertisers or other parties for marketing and promotional purposes.

From time to time, we may use third party suppliers to provide services on our website. If a supplier wants to collect information about you, you will be notified. However, you will never be required to give information to a third party supplier. We restrict the way third party suppliers can use your information. They are not allowed to sell or give your information to others.

5. USER NAMES AND PASSWORDS.
Your access to parts of our website may be protected by a user name and a password. Do not give your passwords to anyone. If you enter a section of our website that requires a password, you should log out when you leave. As a safety precaution, you should also close out of your web browser completely and re-open it before viewing other parts of the Internet.

6. YOUR USE OF INFORMATION AND UNSOLICITED JUNK E-MAIL.
If you obtain personally identifiable information about another website user, you are not allowed to disclose this information to anyone else without the consent of the user and our content, too.

We hate junk e-mail (Spam). Information you obtain from our website about us or other site users cannot be used by you or others to send unsolicited commercial e-mail or to send unsolicited commercial communications via our website’s posting or other communication systems.

7. YOUR VOLUNTARY DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION TO THIRD PARTIES WHO ARE NOT OUR SUPPLIERS.
You may choose to provide personal information to website visitors or other third parties who are not our suppliers. Please use caution when doing so. The privacy policies and customs of these third parties determine what is done with your information.

8. AUTORESPONDERS.
We may use autoresponders to communicate with you by e-mail. To protect your privacy, we use a verified opt-in system for such communications and you can always opt out of such communications using the links contained in each auto-responder message. If you have difficulties opting out, you may contact us by sending an e-mail to web@gsh.org.in or sending us mail to the address listed below.

9. POLICY CHANGES.
The terms of this policy may change from time to time. If such changes were made, we will notify you by a notice posted on our website’s home page of the changes that have been made. If you disagree with the changes that have been made, please contact us (by e-mail, using a website contact form, or in writing by mail), and any changes made to this policy will not apply to information we have collected from you prior to making the changes.

If you are concerned about the topics covered by this policy, you should read it each time before you use our website. Any questions or concerns about this policy should be brought to our attention by sending an e-mail to web@gsh.org.in and providing us with information relating to your concern. You may also write to us with your concerns at the address listed below:

Good Shepherd Homes
Communication Department
F3 Eastern Court
B.T. Kavade Road
Ghorpadi, Pune-411001

This policy was last updated on 9th June 2010.

PAPPU’S STORY

Take the case of Pappu who ran away from home to escape a drunken father. He travelled ticket-less in a train only to find himself thrown out by the ticket collector at the Mumbai station. Seeing the hordes of people pushing and pulling to fit into the trains, Pappu became afraid. He had never seen so many people in his life. He spent the first few days at the railway platform, hungry and scared. Gradually he started begging to be able to survive. Soon he got to know a few other homeless children, who taught him the art of street survival. It has been seven years now since Pappu started living on Mumbai’s streets. He has learned a lot in a short time.

ANIL’S STORY

Hear the amazing true story of Anil from his own mouth. This story is very typical of how children end up on the road.
‘One day there was a fight at home, and my mom picked up a knife and threatened my dad. In the end, he picked up an axe. The neighbours finally stopped the fight, and in the early morning, mom packed up her things and left the house.

We as kids joined mother in her new place. Then a stranger came in. She said: ‘This is now your daddy’ But I said: ‘This man is not my father’. Because I would not call him dad, my mother beat me very much. One day, she gave me 50 rupees for an errand, and I ran back to my real father.
When I came to his house, all the neighbours said ‘Your father is dead’. I cried and cried.

A few days later, I met my mother again. I said ‘mother, let me come back with you’, but she said ‘From today, you’re not my son. As far as I’m concerned you’re dead’. My stepfather warned the police and said: ‘When you find that boy, teach him a lesson!’

The cops caught me on a train and beat me with a stick. I fell backward out of the running train, and was taken to hospital with injuries. I kept thinking of my father. I went to his grave site to ask him for forgiveness. I said ‘Please dad, forgive me for not being there for you!’

Then I started to sell water bottles. I would sleep at the train station. I started to use drugs. That’s how I still live now. In the future I want to leave all these things behind’.

VIDYA’S STORY

Vidya is one of the girls in Good Shepherd Homes. Read to her amazing story:

Vidya and her sister Komal come from a city in India called Pune. Their neighbourhood is famous for a local liquor which is brewed illegally in the homes of people, and sold in the slums. Many of the people in the neighbourhood drink far too much alcohol.

Vidya remembers: ‘My dad taught my mother to drink. She was a great mum when she was sober. In the beginning, when life was not so bad, my sister and me attended school. But soon my mother started to drink heavily. We had to stop going to school. My mother stopped working or doing any house work. She even stopped cooking. She began to sell every piece of furniture and vessel in our small home’.

‘Many nights she would be lying drunk somewhere in the neighbourhood, and we would have to carry her back home. Me and my sister were just four and five years old. Sometimes my grand mother would visit and bring us food’.

Komal and myself would be away from home for days, begging for food, and sleeping in any place in the open that looked safe. If we returned home, mum would get very angry and beat me up. I was afraid to even come back’.
Vidya and her sister Komal would also board long distance trains and travel many hundreds of miles, singing to train passengers in their compartments. To keep the beat of the song, they would click two pebbles together. Sometimes they would get some food, and at other times people would give them small change.

A year later, Vidya’s mother died from liver failure. Six-year old Vidya had to take care of her little sister and her small brother Vicky.

Soon after Vidya’s mother’s death, a staff member of Good Shepherd Homes heard about Vidya and her sister. A few weeks later, the girls joined one of the groups in the home. Vidya: ‘Soon I made great friends and my house parent Gauri took such great care of me. When I grow up I want to send gifts to the children here in GSH. I remember how happy I was when I received my first gifts’.

The Pune Transit Home was opened in Pune in 2004. After GSH had been operating for several years, it became increasingly clear that the a transit home was needed.

A transit home enables GSH to:

• Have an inner city presence
• Network with other agencies directly
• Have proximity to the neediest slums and city areas.
• Aid GSH in assessing needs and taking action where needed.

The transit home is the presently the main GSH admission centre. The home is situated very close to the Pune railway terminus and is easily accessible for all. In six years of operations, 40 kids have been admitted and helped off the street.

Some of the agencies that GSH networks with in Pune are:

• Compassion for India Charity Foundation
• Jeevan Jyoti Charity Foundation
• Mukhti Udharan Seva Trust

The GSH Malavli children’s home is located in the idyllic Lonavla hills. The home, formerly a holiday bungalow, was purchased by GSH with a generous grant from CRY UK, Southampton in 2007. The property is also on the outskirts of the Malavli village, famed for its ancient rock caves.

The 1500 sq ft home is presently occupied by 14 children and 3 staff. Surrounding the property is a 6500 sq ft garden with further adjacent fields for sports and recreation.