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International award for Salaam Baalak Trust

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Close on the heels of Kailash Satyarthi, the founder of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, another NGO, Salaam Baalak Trust (SBT), which works with children in Delhi has been got an international award, the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards for 2014 given out by the US government. The award carries a $10,000 grant and support in communications and capacity building for a year.

The award is in recognition of SBT's use of the creative and performing arts to bring change in the lives of the disadvantaged children. SBT which was formed in 1988 with the proceeds of Mira Nair's film Salaam Bombay!, runs several shelter homes for runaway and homeless children, where they are given food, medical aid, shelter; they are given access to education and vocational skills besides workshops on theatre, dance, puppetry, music, film, photography and the visual arts.

SBT children put up street plays, and even conduct a walk into Pahargunj which offers tourists glimpses of their life on the streets.

Sanjoy Roy, SBT founding trustee, said, "Drama and arts classes play a cathartic and therapeutic role, providing traumatized young people with a way to express and explore the pain, insecurity and broken dreams."

The American government's National Arts and Humanities Youth Program award is given out annually to 12 organisations from within the US and one international outfit which work with children and use art and cultural interventions to help them.

The awardees are chosen by the US President's Committee on Arts and Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Endowment for the Arts, and National Endowment for the Humanities. US First lady Michelle Obama gave out the award on Tuesday at a ceremony inside the White House to Praveen Nair, chairperson of the trust, who spoke in her speech about how SBT had successfully instilled a sense of self-confidence and dignity in the lives of the children through the experience of performing arts.

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