RAGPICKERS EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT SCHEME (REDS)- BANGALORE

REDS–Bangalore (Rag-Pickers Education and Development Scheme) is a social development initiative dedicated to improving the lives of ragpickers, domestic workers, child labourers, and children from marginalized communities in Bengaluru and Hosur. Founded through an inter-religious initiative in 1979, formally supported by BMSSS in 1984, and later undertaken by the Marianist Trust since 1992, REDS works to promote education, health, dignity, and socio-economic empowerment. Its preventive approach focuses on slum-based interventions through play schools, formal education, evening tuition, women’s empowerment through self-help groups, vocational training, spoken English, and computer education, enabling children and families to build a secure and sustainable future.

Alongside prevention, REDS emphasizes reintegration and holistic development by reaching out to children of 678 living on the streets through counselling, rehabilitation, home visits, advocacy, and referrals for food, shelter, education, and medical care. The organization also provides skill training and employment support in tailoring, computer technology, and spoken English. Guided by principles of community participation, transparency, resource optimization, and collaboration, REDS has evolved over more than four decades from a welfare-oriented initiative to an empowerment-driven organization. Today, it operates 10 play schools, 10 study centres, 6 tailoring units, 2 computer training centres, and guidance support to 18 Self-Help Groups comprising 172 women, continuing its mission of fostering peace, justice, dignity, and holistic development among the marginalized.