CWC started its urban programme, Ankur in 1985. The urban programme covers 24 field areas of Bangalore and Kundapur town in Karnataka, India. CWC's activists work towards the empowerment of working children, their families and communities in the urban areas.

It was launched, in order to directly work with working children in the city in the hotel industry. It aims to strengthen Bhima Sangha and to empower children to realise their rights. It has facilitated outreach among working children through setting up of voluntary centres and contact point and by facilitating the emergence of the Bhima Sangha (children’s union). CWC has extended a broad-based understanding of education by addressing issues of literacy and health education among children, giving information on tapping available local resources and infrastructure (banks, post-office, hospitals etc.), and awareness of basic legal rights and responsibilities. Over the years CWC has adopted a two-fold approach to tackle the issue of child labour in urban areas. The first is the sectoral approach in order to highlight certain industries in which children are concentrated and are particularly vulnerable to exploitation for example the hotel industry, agarbatti (incense sticks used in prayer) factories and rag picking. Working in tandem with the sectoral focus is the geographical approach (inspired by their rural experiences) whereby children in certain slum developments across the city (e.g. Vandimode, Harinagar, Banashankari) were targeted so as to enable CWC to work with the children’s families, the larger community and the municipal corporation. The focus was on issues of child labour and social transformation.