Krishna Thapa used to work as a tutor in a hostel in Kathmandu run by a foreigner. He was teaching a number of boys in the hostel. He got to know from the children that they were being sexually abused by the foreigner. This fact disturbed him a lot and he started researching cases of sexual abuse on minor age boys. He came to find out that there were 40 such organizations running in the Kathmandu Valley alone. These organizations would bring kids from the street and the founders of these organizations were abusing their power and exploiting children. After finding out this information, he went to report to the police but they did not believe at all that boys are being sexually abused and did not file his complaint. He then started Voice of Children to rehabilitate the street children and protect young boys living on the streets.
Voice of Children (VOC) is working with children living/working on the streets by rescuing, rehabilitating, and then reintegrating them back to their families & community by improving their life skills & capacity for self-sustainability. Though the mission started in 1997, it was legally registered in 2000 with the mission to offer street children with opportunities to develop their full potential for social reintegration in a caring and protective environment. VOC is currently operating four different programs focused on eradicating the phenomenon of street children, against child sexual abuse and earthquake support across 60 districts of Nepal. They also work with marginalized families to empower them and to make them aware of available facilities and services to prevent their children from landing on the streets.
They currently run four different programs, Street Children Program, Program Against Child Sexual Abuse, Eastern Program and Earthquake Project. Street Children Program encourages children living on the streets to leave street life by capacity building. They work with the children from the initial stage i.e., right from the street up to the point where they become self-sustainable. This program has 4 major functions; prevention, rescue, rehab, and reintegration.
Under the Program Against Child Sexual Abuse, they run campaigns and awareness sessions to make the children aware, along with their families and concerned authorities & stakeholders on the subject of child sexual abuse. This program has three major areas of working which include; awareness and advocacy, capacity building, and rescuing victims of child sexual abuse.
With the increase of street children in the eastern region such as Itahari and Dharan, VOC started operating in these areas with the aim to support children living or working in the streets of Itahari and Dharan, and sexually abused children in that region. Under the Earthquake Program, they support the victims of the earthquake by providing basic needs such as; food, shelter, drinking water, medicine, blankets, clothes, etc. They also focus on providing nutritious food for pregnant & lactating women and children. They also provide psychosocial counseling to the families and children in order to help them to cope with the trauma.
They have been awarded multiple times for their great work. In 2014, they were awarded by Star Impact Award for Protection from Asia-Pacific. Similarly, they were awarded by the 2012 Star Impact Awards, Small Award by Star Foundation UK for the protection of children living on the street. They were also honored by the National Advisory Commission on Human Rights of the French Republic with a Human Rights Prize 2009 for the protection and support of street children in Nepal. They also produced a movie called ‘’Chaaya’ based on child sexual abuse. The movie was honored with Best Feature Film in Nepal International Film Festival and Movie of the Year by the President of the Nepali Film Development Board.