India, May 11 -- When flames tore through the fragile shanties along the Narkeldanga canal one humid evening in February 2025, families lost everything in minutes. Bamboo poles, tin sheets, plastic and tarpaulin roofs collapsed into ash. Mothers clutched children, rickshaw pullers watched their meagre belongings burn, and despair hung heavy over the settlement. For decades, they had endured floods and disease, but this fire was different-it stripped them bare. Into this devastation stepped the Salesians of Don Bosco, who had cared for Kolkata's street children since 1985, now determined to bring dignity to canal dwellers neglected by civic authorities and overlooked by local NGOs.

Forgotten Settlement by Drainage Canal Kolkata's canals ...