Krishna lives in Meerut with her 4 children and has been working as a manual scavenger for the past 30 years. Krishna was forced into manual scavenging after her marriage to Rajpal. The women in Rajpal’s family have been working as manual scavengers for many generations.

Krishna struggled to adapt to the nature of this work; the working conditions and abuse from her husband affected her health. She tried to get out of this work, but after her youngest son was born, her husband left her, and she had no other option but to continue working to support her family.

Krishna has seven children, among them her three daughters. Ranjita is the eldest who completed her primary education and lives in Delhi with her husband and three kids. Deepa, the second daughter, is mentally challenged and lives with Krishna, Pooja; the third daughter completed her MBA after marriage and works in a private firm.

Among her 4 sons, Vijay is married and lives with his wife and a 1-year-old kid near Meerut. He works as a daily wage worker. Karan is currently pursuing B-Pharma, Rahul has completed his secondary education and Harsh has completed higher education. All three live with Krishna and earn wages when they get the opportunity to work on a contractual job.

Though Krishan has always dreamt of coming out of this inhuman activity, her financial condition and lack of skills have always stopped her from achieving it, but even after pressure from her in-laws, she did not allow any of her kids to be part of this inhuman activity. With a minimum income of 4000 /- per month and support of a few more thousand from contractual work that her sons can acquire, she runs her household.

From the grant provided by Utopia Foundation, she hopes to fulfil basic requirements for her family.