Children of Shadow and Saffron: Life on the Streets in India

* A moving report

Photographer Clem Willems and journalist Veerle Beel visit the street children of India

In collaboration with Broederlijk Delen
'She is the first child I have met in India, although I pass her by almost casually that morning. Leaning against a pillar, sitting on the hard ground. An old woman gives her a push as I approach. Priya, in her dirty dress and bare feet, comes hesitantly out of the shadows to give me everything a five-year-old slum child in India has: a smile, two hands together, a bow ... and then quickly back into the safe arms of her grandmother.
She is a foundling. Or rather, a cast-off. Given away, perhaps because she is a girl. The old woman and her family are very proud of her: they will never let her go.
A few hours later I am shocked by their hovel, leaning against the outer wall of the school where I am staying. Bare feet clambering over mountains of rubbish. Many more children now, with messy hair and dirty faces. I see mountains of problems, and my journey has not even really started yet. They see laughing Priya who once crawled over the asphalt like a beaten dog. Soon she will be allowed to go to school for the first time. A small, happy song of poor, proud people in India.'