Street children need care
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
BANGLADESH needs to create facilities for the rootless children or street children to grow up with some care. It needs to educate and house them, with due support, so that they become useful citizens.
These unfortunate children, abandoned by parents, used to be called 'tokais' for rag picking as the means of a livelihood. They were renamed, 'pathakalis' or 'street buds' in the eighties. A trust, organised for them, proved to be short-lived.
The problem of uncared for children, with serious social and economic dimension, deserve attention. Growing up, unloved and uncared for, the children become easy victims of crime, anti-social activities, drug addiction and other vices. They are easy recruits for unlawful activities including terrorism and stealing.
The whole thing could be reversed with systematic efforts to rehabilitate all the uncared for children. It would make them productive and useful citizens.
There is no reason why the present government cannot take a project to support such children. There are reasons to think that many individuals and organisations would lend useful support to any government programme to this end. The wealthy would be sensitised to support such endeavours. It is also quite possible to raise a big fund out of small contributions from the non-wealthy individuals.
But, first of all, the government should set up an institution for the people to contribute so. The institution, when visible, would be a big motivator for the people to make contributions. The government can correct the mistakes and flaws in past programmes for better results. School buildings for the street children, that were built earlier in a number of places, could be used as the nucleus of the programme to support the street children. Political will is needed to start and strengthen it after reclaiming and recovering all past programme, for them.
Md. Ziaul Shams
Section-11, Mirpur
Dhaka
These unfortunate children, abandoned by parents, used to be called 'tokais' for rag picking as the means of a livelihood. They were renamed, 'pathakalis' or 'street buds' in the eighties. A trust, organised for them, proved to be short-lived.
The problem of uncared for children, with serious social and economic dimension, deserve attention. Growing up, unloved and uncared for, the children become easy victims of crime, anti-social activities, drug addiction and other vices. They are easy recruits for unlawful activities including terrorism and stealing.
The whole thing could be reversed with systematic efforts to rehabilitate all the uncared for children. It would make them productive and useful citizens.
There is no reason why the present government cannot take a project to support such children. There are reasons to think that many individuals and organisations would lend useful support to any government programme to this end. The wealthy would be sensitised to support such endeavours. It is also quite possible to raise a big fund out of small contributions from the non-wealthy individuals.
But, first of all, the government should set up an institution for the people to contribute so. The institution, when visible, would be a big motivator for the people to make contributions. The government can correct the mistakes and flaws in past programmes for better results. School buildings for the street children, that were built earlier in a number of places, could be used as the nucleus of the programme to support the street children. Political will is needed to start and strengthen it after reclaiming and recovering all past programme, for them.
Md. Ziaul Shams
Section-11, Mirpur
Dhaka