On the 21st of July, 2000, there was an article in the Times of India, Mumbai stating that there were nearly 200,000 homeless/orphan children in Mumbai, and every week, more than fifty come in from other Indian states to join them.

Mumbai is still deemed the 'city of opportunity' to many and because of this, if things are not going well for a family in the villages, they move to Mumbai or send their children to earn money. With the population of Mumbai surpassing etc. 23 million (2008) and growing almost by the minute, it is clearly impossible to sustain a high enough standard of living and enough 'opportunities' for everyone.

One! targets the street children, and their families, of Mumbai. In particular, the central Mumbai areas between Bandra and Andheri, where there are numerous pockets of slums with between 50 and 4000 people each. These areas are filled with people who have very limited earning capacity and have arrived primarily from Gujarat or Rajasthan.

One! also targets the children and their families in a far off suburb of Mumbai called Nallasopara. Unable to make ends meet in Mumbai, they have been forced to keep moving north where there is electricity for only a couple of hours a day, limited supplies, no infrastructure and high expenses. This area is a multi-cultural mix with families coming from almost all states. Outside of the official Mumbai limits, there are no public schools in the area. There are inadequate private schools that charge low fees but high bribes.