Bangladesh Street Children Comprehensive Help

Report on the Street Children Project

In this update on the Street Children Project, we have taken interviews of two persons, who regularly come for the breakfast. Billal is a 14 year old boy with no family and Abdur is perhaps 50 years old, but extremely poor. Both have lost young family members, who just disappeared. This is not unusual for us, probably due to trafficking of the children.

There are pictures of the two interviewees and two additional photographs. One photograph shows how many of the children often sleep in each others company, under the veranda of the Town Hall Stores, which are closed overnight. The fourth photo shows William with several of the children and mother of one boy, who regularly come for breakfast.

INTERVIEW WITH 14 YEAR OLD BILLAL

I am Billal. My age is 14 years. I have stayed in Dhaka from my childhood. I am parentless. I know from a very young age that my parents have died. I had a younger brother. He used to stay with me also. But I lost him a long time ago. I and my younger brother used to stay in the street and footpath. After losing my brother, I have lived alone in the footpath till now. I have nowhere to go and nowhere to stay except roadside. I collect food from the roadside dust-bin and eat, because I don’t know any work for earning. Sometimes, I collect the waste metal cans, plastic bottles and some other metal and plastic stuff from the road and roadside thrown by the people. Then, I sell those collected stuffs and buy some food. Sometimes, I become hungry, but there is no food for me to eat. There are some other children also, who live their lives just like me and stay day and night beside roadside. This is the cycle of my life.

One day I watched some people were distributing the breakfast to the street children and other under-privileged children from 6 am to 7 am in front of  Mohammadpur Town Hall Market. Knowing about the breakfast I went to take breakfast and met Brother William. I come every day to take breakfast there. Brother William and others with him try to understand me that I need minimum education to become a person in the society. They offer us to learn in “Open Sky School” for Friday and Saturday. Thus, I started to learn in “Open Sky School” by PEP, arranged by Brother William. I go to school every Friday and Saturday in the morning after breakfast and get 10 pieces of chocolates after school.

This organization, PEP, not only teaches us, but also, gives us medicines, injections and sometimes medical operations also.

All of the PEP employees advise us to learn education and good behavior. I understand that if I follow their advice and other activities, I can change my life in the future. Finally, I can say that I shall do better with the help of PEP.

INTERVIEW WITH 50 YEAR OLD ABDUR RAHMAN

I am Abdur from Kishoregonj. I have stayed in Dhaka with my family for a long time. I collect various kinds of materials off the road and roadside thrown by people; things such as waste metal cans, plastic bottles and other things, and sell them to earn some money to support my family as a “poorest of the poor”.

When my elder son grew up, he helped the family by earning some money also. But, after his marriage, he did not provide us any economic support and became separated from the family. Now, we are suffering a lot.

My younger son, Mosharrof, who helped me a lot gathering these roadside materials, disappeared one day. Seven years ago, when he was 13 years, he went outside and never came back. We all searched a lot for him, but did not find him any more. In search of him we sold our village land, which was our last hope and spent all the money we have in cash.

Now, I hope that one day I shall find my lost son with the help of PEP and others.

We thank all our generous donors, who have been helping to finance the project for the street children and other extreme poor adults. Since January 1^st, we have also received Taka  8,100 ($100)in local donations.