Tokai is one of the names used for street children in Bangladesh. "Tokai kora", in Bengali language, means to pick up discarded things and "Tokai" is the name given to those who do that. It is a very appropriate name for street children in Khulna, since they survive on the streets recycling rubbish and left over bits and pieces. Since 1995 the Tokai House has become a refuge for about eighty boys and girls. The establishment of the Tokai House was inspired and supported by the Xaverian Fathers and the Catholic Church. Back in 1995 Fr. Riccardo Tobanelli and Jorge Alvarado took over the responsibility of the Interfaith Dialogue Centre of the Khulna Diocese and, besides carrying on the specific activity of building up friendly relationships among people of different faiths, they started to offer shelter and health services to street children in Khulna. The Tokai House is at the same time the shelter for street children, the office of co-ordination of Interfaith Dialogue and Kh.UDA activities, and, the residence of a local Xaverian Community.
	The Khulna Underprivileged Development Association was created at the end of the year 2000 with the scope of running a 'Day Care Centre' for children below five years of age. The experience with street children taught us that providing this service we can in fact prevent the increase in the numbers of children hitting the streets in order to survive. Kh.UDA offers to divorced, abandoned and low-income mothers a safe place were to leave their children during the day. Volunteers, who are members of the Interfaith Dialogue Centre, manage the Day Care Centre of Kh.UDA and some other activities of the Tokai House. There are also three employed carers. The Day Care Centre provides for about 40 children a safe space, health care, basic education and two proper meals a day. The centre is open from seven in the morning to seven in the evening.
	Interfaith Dialogue, as it were, is the very soul of all our activities at the Tokai House. We are a group of people coming from different religious and non-religious background. We meet each other in formal and non-formal meetings debating on how to get along together in-spite of the pluralism of our inspirations and views. So far, we have realized that the best way to do it is to work together in tackling the most serious problems affecting our society. Primarily we focus our activities on the most vulnerable groups in the Khulna urban area, namely, children and women.