Brikkhomaya Shishu Bikashkendra spreads light to street children

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DHAKA, March 2, 2020 (BSS) – There is some schools in the capital for the education of street children. Brikkhomaya Shishu Bikashkendra is one of those. At present, nearly 150 street children are getting education from Brikkhomaya Shishu Bikashkendra’s four centers at Suhrawady Udyan, High Court intersection, Osmani Udyan and Palashi intersection.

Human Safety Foundation president MA Mukit, who is the main initiator of the school, said, “We introduced the school at Suhrawady Udyan in 2010. Primarily 20 street children were our students. But now we introduced three more branches and hope more will be opened in future. Most of the teachers are students teaching the street children at the four branches daily.”

“We have established the school comprising of eight like minded persons. We provide meal one time daily for the school students and arranged books and education materials for them. We also provide new cloths for them during Eid and warm cloths during winter season,” he added.

Describing the reason behind the initiative Mukit said, “Street children often do not have the means to earn money as they are not educated. Government organizations sometimes help them. Most often it is a non-government organization such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) that helps them. We think that we should also contribute something for them. That’s why every day our street educators are out on the street to rescue children in need of support and bring them at our school.”

Bayezid Islam, a teacher of Brikkhomaya Shishu Bikashkendra, said basically Bangla, English and Mathematics are taught in the schools. The street and deprived children also have dreams and education is the main way to implement those. Human Safety Foundation is working relentlessly to make their dream true, he added.

Street child Machakin Begum aged between 8-10 years, who is the student of Brikkhomaya Shishu Bikashkendra’s High Court branch, said she got admitted at the school eight months ago having no literacy power. But now she can write and read Bangla and English.

Another student of the same branch Maruf Mia said teacher Ataul Gani of Brikkhomaya Shishu Bikashkendra admitted him two years ago. He said, “I come here in the morning every day and learn many things from my teachers. They are very cordial and helpful. I want to be a teacher in future. Please pray for me and my fellow students as we can be successful in life.”

The street children in Bangladesh are unable to go to school and as a result, they do not get proper education.

According to government data released in 2016, 34 lakh street children exist in different cities of the country while the report from Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) projects the number of street children is 1.5 million in 2015 and it will reach to 1.56 million in 2024.