Edith Wilkins

Founder

Founder of Edith Wilkins Street Children Foundation, India

Edith Wilkins is the founder of Edith Wilkins Street Children Foundation, India (2003)[1], an Indian non-profit working on women & children, human rights and education from Darjeeling.

Edith Wilkins is an Irish nurse and the founder of the Edith Wilkins Street Children Foundation, India, a charity based in Darjeeling, West Bengal, that provides shelter, education and protection to street children, child labourers and children at risk of trafficking. A native of Cork city, she worked in India for close to three decades before returning to Ireland in 2010.

The foundation was launched in 2003 and operates in a region whose proximity to the borders of Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan makes it a route used by child traffickers. Wilkins has served as its chief executive, running its Irish and Indian operations from Crosshaven, County Cork, while the programme in India is led by an Indian director.

Early life and education

Wilkins was born in Cork city. She trained as a registered general nurse and as a nurse of children with special needs, and also holds a diploma in counselling.

Career

In 1982 Wilkins travelled to India as a volunteer with the Irish non-governmental organisation Goal, intending to stay three months. She remained for three years on that first posting and went on to work in India for about thirty years in total, with three further years in post-famine Sudan. She served as Goal's country director in India and Sudan and later as country director in India for the organisation Hope. During her years in Calcutta she became a well-known figure in the city's development sector and worked alongside Mother Teresa.

In the early 2000s Wilkins and a group of supporters established the Edith Wilkins Street Children Foundation, which was launched in 2003 and based itself in Darjeeling in northern West Bengal. The foundation runs residential halfway houses for boys and girls, along with education, feeding and vocational training programmes, and works on the recovery of children who have been trafficked or subjected to abuse and forced labour.

Wilkins fostered seventeen children during her years in India and adopted two, Omer and Karishma. She returned to Ireland in 2010 after repeated illness, having contracted malaria, tuberculosis, cholera, hepatitis and typhoid while working in India, and has continued as the foundation's chief executive, coordinating fundraising and the programme between Ireland and India.

Recognition

Wilkins was named International Person of the Year at the Rehab People of the Year Awards in 2011, for her work improving the lives of vulnerable people in India.[2][3][4][5][6]

Edith Wilkins Street Children Foundation, India

An India-registered non-profit founded in 2003 by Cork-born nurse Edith Wilkins, providing care and protective support in Darjeeling to street children, victims of abuse and trafficking, and child labourers. It runs residential halfway houses for boys and girls along with education, healthcare, vocational training and counselling programmes.

Edith Wilkins Street Children Foundation, India reports the following, on its own site:

To date over 2500 children have come through our system in Darjeeling and presently there are over 500 children in the system
70 children can be residential at a time