An update from Dhaka - Brishti Shonali (Golden Rainfall)

Posted Mon, 27 Apr 2009 03:56:00 GMT

 

I am into my final days of my visit here in Dhaka, and it is with a heavy heart that I have some devastating news to pass on to you guys. In my first blog, I wrote about a young boy that I met, Rabbi. In the last few days I have been unable to relocate him, his peers have claimed that an elder lady who was claiming to be his grandma (dhadi) has taken him away from the station. Rabbi, was extremely upset and his peers told me that he was kicking and screaming as she took him away. I asked them if they thought that she was actually his grandma, to which they all replied that this type of thing happens regularly and that the lady was simply claiming to be his grandma. I asked the station police if they knew of his whereabouts but I was waved off very rudely.
 
As devastating as this news is, the kids of the station seem to be completely desensitised to this type of occurrence, for them this is daily life. A few days back, we held some intensive interviews with some of the kids that we have selected to take on in our centre. Our selection process is varied, in that there are many issues that the youngsters face in the station. Boys seem to respond readily to classes whereby they can actively participate and practice writing etc. The girls seem very disinterested in the class setup yet are very responsive to roleplays etc. It is fair to say that there are no two children in the station who face exactly the same problems and issues. 
 
All the interviews have been filmed and I will hopefully get the film edited in time for you all to see at our May 2nd event. I wanted to give you a little detail about one particular girl, her name is Brishti Shonali (Golden Rainfall). She is no older than 7 and extremely restless; she has a short attention span and on the surface is just like any normal 7 year old. Just like our little brothers or sisters, nieces or nephews, she always wants to sing and dance, fool around and is extremely easily influenced. This little girl was abandoned in the station by her step mother who used to beat her because she was hyperactive. She has been left in the station to fend for herself for the past two years. Any opportunity she gets, she tries to beg for small change. She has even tried to beg off me many times. In return, I replicated her actions, which she found hilarious and immediately, jumped on me to give me a massive hug. 
 
In the interview, we discovered that she has self harmed using blades on her forearm. She did this as she saw older girls in the station doing the same thing. They all sit in the evening together and drink Dandy (an alcopop), and as they talk about their plights, they take blades to their forearms and repeatedly cut themselves. I asked Dr Zaki about this, as he has done an intense research study on this area, and claims that this type of behaviour was first introduced by local mastans who would cut a working girls forearm as part of some sort of sadomasochistic (S&M) ritual. As these working girls were staying in the station , the slightly younger girls would see these cuts and replicate. It has now become so common that even this tiny innocent 7 year old has self harmed. She has also taken drugs in tablet form and also addicted to glue sniffing. To wean these children off drugs such as these and to remove the afflictions they have faced at such a young age will no doubt be hard work, and God willing and with your help we will get there. To even be able to rehabilitate one person, I believe, is enough for us to die happy.
 
From Rabbi’s experiences, I have also been asking our kids about the activities of the roof of Kamlapur Station. All the kids have infomed me that there is a dangerous guy who lives up there by the name of Shad Bai Chompka. According to them he is the major ring leader of all the activities in the station, from drugs distribution to molestation and prostitution. The station police are well informed of his activities, but they too are paid by him to keep quiet and allow the smooth flow of his operations. There is not a single MP in Bangladesh or Upazilla Chairman (local councillor) who has lobbied for the safe protection of the children of Kamplapur Station against all these disgusting and horrendous activities that the children are exposed to. The children are prone to all kinds of diseases, infections, abuse and misuse, yet the people who run this country, or who are influential in this country, do not bat an eyelid. In fact, from my own relatives, to locals of the station and our centre, right the way even to NGO bureau director (yes the director), have discouraged me from our planned actions. They have repeatedly told me that programmes such as ours fail, that programmes such as our do not work, that it is an impossible task to rehabilitate these children, that we wont be able to succeed in our intentions. I believe, as I know that you do too, that with enough support and with enough passion, with the right blend of enthusiasm and energy, the right blend of experience and knowledge, while one person alone may not be able to instill change, collectively, we can, we will and we shall.
 
I am committed with every ounce of energy, every bead of sweat and everything that I have to make change happen. Who is with us? Show your support, make some sound and lets voice the voiceless. Our ambitions, yes, are big, our belief is bigger but more than ever before, We Need YOU!!!

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Paradoxical - An update from Dhaka

Posted Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:45:00 GMT

 

It is known as the city of mosques, yet some of the stories I have heard here over the past couple of days are beyond immoral. A country which celebrates its independence on almost a daily basis find some of its most needy citizens steeped in an unending maze of control by local mastans. 
 
The last few days have been difficult in the sense that getting things done here continually seems to be such a long process, the temperature is reaching unbearable levels and the stories and the gross conditions I have been seeing on a daily basis seem to be just getting more and more difficult to accept. But it is the reason for the peril that I mentioned in my last blog that kids like Rabbi face that has been on my mind these past few days. As I mentioned above, a city known as the City of Mosques (literally on every corner) would seemingly be full of spiritual and moral inhabitants. How is it then that immoral acts such as paedophilic sodomy can exist here? Bangladesh is a country which is rightly proud of its sovereignty and celebrates its independence constantly and yet the children and the struggling poor who are living on the streets of Dhaka, seem to be caught in a tangle of street warfare between mastans who use, abuse and expose these helpless people to things which no human should be. The power for struggle even encapsulates the local police, area security guards and from some of the third party stories you here from street dwellers even government officials and ministers. Bangladesh is known the world over for being one of the poorest countries in the world. How is it then, that prostitution, normally associated as a disease of a side effect of capitalism, plagues the most poorest of the country’s citizens? Unfortunately, I am yet to find the answers to such rhetoric, but I felt it was important that these paradoxicals be put in the public realm, so that even if for a second, readers who were not so aware of my country’s perils could be made aware.
 
I have an unnerving belief that if my fellow brothers and sisters in humanity are aware of such problems and issues, then they will find it within themselves, to at least raise awareness to their friends and family. 
 
I spent the weekend in my home village visiting family etc and arrived back here on Monday morning. In the afternoon, I met with Shuzon and Jakia – our two newest recruits. Shuzon will be working as a full time teacher and mentor and Jakia will be working as part of our outreach programme but also providing additional support and teaching a few subjects that she specialises in herself. On Tuesday  I also met with Shahera who will be working as our homekeeper and has a wealth of experience including working previously as a teacher in a Brac school and also working as a motivator for street children. Alongside this, we have our existing field outreach Shoeb and of course our project co-ordinator, Dr Zaki. I really feel that we now have a core team here in Bangladesh, who between them have a wealth of experience, an abundance of energy and huge passion for our work.   I will be meeting with a few potential counsellors and nurses tomorrow also before making hiring decisions on Saturday. We have been working consistently on upgrading our building and renovating certain aspects. I will be spending Friday evening adding the finishing touches myself (lick of paint etc).
 
Tomorrow, Shuzon, Jakia and myself will be visiting the Newmarket and Nikilhet bazaars to purchase schooling equipment (boards, writing books, sketch books, chalk, teaching books etc) and will also be making final orders for furniture such as beds and dining table etc. Friday and Saturday, during the day we will be holding some final focus groups with the kids and then on to some outdoor teaching also. As I mentioned on Friday evening I will be doing the final finishing touches inside the rooms and on Saturday evening, all the furniture will arrive and fixtures and fittings put into place. On Sunday, we are aiming to hold our first official classes inside the centre.
 
At this time, I wanted to end on a plea to all readers who may feel helpless to our cause to attend our event on May 2nd where you will be able to see first-hand the exact work I have been doing here when we will hopefully screen the footage I have filmed whilst here (gonna be a mad scramble to get the film edited next Thursday and Friday, lol).Our ambition is to eventually, house, feed, educate, provide medical support, psychological therapy, and creative nourishment to these kids. I ask you all at this time not to desert us and show your support to our cause. Perhaps, once we can financially support our ambitious plans, we can then set about answering some of the rhetoric with which I opened this blog.
 
Its nearly 1am here, and on that note, I wish you all a wonderful evening. God bless, and peace be upon you all!

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Update from Dhaka - April 2009

Posted Wed, 15 Apr 2009 10:10:00 GMT
 
 

I have been in Dhaka for about a week now, and I wanted to keep all supporters of Restless beings updated with regards to my progress here.

 
Firstly, let me explain to you the environment here in Dhaka. The weather here is swelteringly hot, daytime temperatures of about 39C humidity is high at around 80% or so and nightime temperatures are not much better with an average of around 33C. The political situation is horrendous here, with practically no law on the ground. I’ll give you an example, the drivers of Dhaka never follow the roadside traffic lights, on top of that yesterday on my travels, a traffic warden had asked a truck behind me to stop, the driver continued for maybe a maximum of another 5 meters. His punishment for this was literally a beating with the policeman’s stick. I am regularly stuck in traffic jams for at least 5 hours per day, a simple trip from my hotel to Kamlapur Station, a mere 6 km took over 2 hours. Yesterday, the country celebrated Paila Baishakhi, or the first day of the Bangla New Year. Security was extremely tight, and I am regularly hearing of the woes of living in Dhaka. Power outages occur every hour for about 30 mins which means Dhaka only has electricity for half an hour every hour.
 
Two days ago, Dr Zaki, our project co-ordinator and Shoeb, our fieldworker accompanied me to Kamplapur Rail Station. This is the hub of many of the marginalised children in Dhaka. We spoke to a number of children, but I wanted to let you know of one child in particular, a young 8 year old boy named Rabbi. He normally roams around the station and is well kn to oour fieldworker, with whom he has spoken on a number of occasions. We wanted to conduct an in depth interview to him, and we approached him around 6.15 pm just as the day was passing to night. Having asked him what he normally gets up to in the day, he answered a mumbled answer which consisted of roaming around looking for scraps of food. We had also noticed that he had a severe bruise on his forehead, and with Zaki being a medical doctor, naturally he inquired a little further. 
 
Initially, Rabbi had told us that he had banged his head against a moving train. Naturally, this would have caused far greater injury than merely a bruise on his forehead and so we enquired a little further. Zaki mentioned that it looked more like he had his head ht against a wall or a floor. With this little encouragement, Rabbi told us that in actual fact he had been pushed against the floor by the station police guard in toilets. He wanted to close the conversation pretty quickly, but we obviously wanted to know what Rabbi had done for the police to have pushed him to the floor, so we continued to question Rabbi. By this time, a number of his friends had gathered around and they were encouraging Rabbi to tell us the truth. Initially Rabbi had feared that I may be some sort of authority figure also, as he didn’t recognise me. But as he was familiar with both Zaki and Shoeb, they explained that I was simply the director of the project they were working on. He then continued to tell us his story. Total darkness had descended and moreover, the power had cut so the entire station was plunged into darkness.
 
As Rabbi had become a little more relaxed, he told us of how the station police guard had taken him into the toilets and had tried to force Rabbi to perform oral sex on him. As Rabbi tried to run away, the police inspector had smashed Rabbi against the wall of the toilet. Rabbi eventually got away as commuters had come in to use the toilet and the police inspector was embarrassed to continue in front of passengers. At this point Zaki enquired whether or not this type of thing happened regularly. Rabbi and his friends told us that oral sex was relatively minor compared to the sodomy that occurs also. They told of us how local station users and wealthy affluent middle class men would visit the station and use the young boys for the sexual desires. When asked if any of the group of boys worked as prostitutes, they all vehemently denied. I asked Rabbi, if he himself had ever been subjected to acts of sodomy, he replied that he had when he first came to the station more than 6 months ago.
 
He told us of how a middle aged man had come into the station, began talking with him and then accompanied him to the roof of the station. Here, the man raped rabbi. Rabbi had obviously bled excessively and passed out from the pain. The next thing he remembered was the man admitting him into the local hospital. After some treatment, two days later he was again in the station. 
 
This absolutely put me into a state of shock, I wasn’t sure of how to react but I was also aware that any negative reaction from me would mean Rabbi would not continue to talk to us out of embarrassment. Zaki continued with his questioning.
 
The group of boys had told us that they could take us to the roof of the station and show us the type of abuse they are regularly subjected to. They also informed us that normally, the customers would pay in the region of 40 taka (40p) for anal intercourse with the boys. They also said that if we didn’t want to go and see the obscenities now, they would take us in the morning when we could still see the blood marks of the night before. Again we inquired if they themselves had been selling their bodies to the station passengers and authorities, which again they denied. In honesty, in my mind and also in Dr Zaki’s, the boys may deny their involvement in prostitution, but aside from the money, there is nothing else that keeps them there.
 
It was unfortunate that we could not film any of the interviews as there was no light (power outages). It is kids like Rabbi who we have been tracking and keeping in touch with over the past months and who we are now looking to move into our rehab centre. In my next blog, I will let you all know how the building is coming along and our progress in opening the centre. It is such a shame that in a country which is advanced enough to enable me to write this blog as I travel in the back of a car and load it up onto the internet while on the move, that there is not a single politician who is lobbying the case for children like Rabbi. This is a polar country and a polar society and to be really honest, I am not sure where I fit in the spectrum, nor am I sure whether I want to fit in the spectrum.
 
Till next time, with all the love from children like Rabbi and team Bangladesh, and me, peace out!

Mabrur - 15 April 2009 - a very restless being.
 

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OUR WANTS VERSUS THEIR NEEDS

Posted Wed, 15 Apr 2009 10:07:00 GMT

It’s been just over six months since I joined Restless Beings and thereupon visited the  proposed site for a rehab centre and home for the needy yet awesome street kids of Dhaka.

I wrote in my first blog a couple of weeks after my return at how concerned I was at the state of affairs, in fact I stated:
‘Witnessing things ‘on the ground’ reminds oneself that there are many who through no fault of their own have been given hopeless starts in their lives and have a right to a support structure which will give them a chance to attaining respectful self-sufficiency.’

So that was six months ago? What have we done for these kids?
Well I genuinely can’t believe how far we’ve come
In September the ‘Big Ten Challenge’ was launched, an initiative focused on raising £10k for the rehab centre, this was an audacious project achieved in less than two months. ….. And with rising awareness of the organization and its cause, come more and more contributions. The generosity of so many of our donors has been phenomenal….My faith in human nature restored
Well, thanks to all this, the Rehab centre will open next month, with at least 15 kids taken straight from the street, giving them increased control over their futures.

However:
There is still a long way to go, it is essential that we sustain the project through monthly contributions, hence the launch of our latest initiative ‘We Need You’, which focuses on securing a regular cash inflow via standing orders. Without this stable finance the project will collapse and all the children we have promised a change get nothing.

And why should we give?
Simply, we just don’t give enough and now in particular is a time for reflection….

Now?
Well unless you’ve been on a Buddhist retreat in Nepal (good for you..) you will know we are in the midst of a  pretty serious economic crisis.

And why has this all happened?
To cut a long story short, for too long we have had it too good, as individuals many of us have been able to borrow at will to finance a continued supply of unnecessary wants, often with no regard to our ability to re-pay these debts.
 …and so have businesses. The credit tap was switched on max for too long, and now its been turned down to a trickle – the ‘credit crunch’. Now businesses reliant on borrowing have gone down e.g. Woolworths and many others are demonstrating unprecedented caution.
  
BUT for those who think the current crisis is even more reason to not think charitably, think again…
The current crisis is actually an opportunity, an opportunity for us to re-evaluate our lifestyles, to cut down on wants (which we think are needs but are really wants :)), and moreover to make that sacrifice for those far less needy than us. We can all do it…
As a rule of thumb I do not disclose my own charitable donations – its something v personal however it is wrong for me to sit here and preach about sacrificing luxuries without mentioning my own efforts, so YES…
 I have given up 1 session a month with my trainer Joao (despite the positive impact on body and soul it is ridiculous for me to think it’s a ‘need’) so that I can contribute monthly to a really worthy cause. And it feels great………………………….
So instead of giving my cash to Joao (If you’re reading this, you’re a diamond geezer and you’ve done so much for me :)) who lives in a luxury flat in Covent Garden my contribution will provide the children with -
  • The safety of having a roof over their head and a place they can rest at night
  • Three meals per day to rid the children of malnutrition
  • Full medical care and assistance to ensure the children are immunised against major diseases
  • Psychological counselling to ensure that any sensitive issues or abuse cases are handled and help the children to overcome their ordeals (including self harm and substance misuse as well as physical and sexual abuse)
  • A manageable education, where the children are taught according to their capabilities
  • An array of life skills lessons that will empower the children with real vocational ability that they can use. As an organisation we believe in a holistic approach to developing these young people, and the key here is to encourage autonomy and confidence
  • Creative Nourishment & Growth: A programme which involves the development of key skills and talents of each child to promote creative growth, which may open the doors to opportunities that these children would not normally have
And I’m so looking forward Insha’Allah (Arabic phrase meaning ‘God willing’) to visiting the centre sometime within the next 12 months to actually tangibly see how my donation is contributing towards a needed change in a helpless child’s life.
So seriously, lets all think about sacrificing our wants so that we can finance their needs. My favourite one-liner of all time is ‘Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth’

Tariq -  2009 - Restlessbeings

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