Streetkids

Blog Children Justice Living

Streetkids, roaming down the dusty roads, the dirty backlanes, seeking more than just a meal or shelter. They eagerly seek each other, friendly faces, those they know understand their urgent need for survival, for companionship.

Streetkids can be found in every corner of South East Asia, mainly in urban settings, in towering cities, where capitalism breeds wealth, prosperity, greed and ignorance for the bourgeois and the middle class. Unfortunately streetkids live not from the scraps of the rich. Instead they are scavengers, seeking daily nourishment from what ever society has abandoned. The terrible scraps from leftovers of a meal at a restaurant, thrown into the foul-smelling trash bin. Your waste, her dinner.

Hunger is a constant miserable companion of a streetkid. She lives on an hourly basis, doing her best to subdue the hunger, the growling in her stomach. When she’s thirsty, she looks for the nearest rusty pipe or river to drown her hunger. Very often she and her peers do not have access to clean drinking water.

A child’s right is to all the protection that adults have preached in those many seminars dedicated to a child’s right. But the reality, we still see her wandering, and waiting for someone, anyone, to save her from her home – the slums.

Society has failed miserably, the UN agencies have failed, the government has failed, every adult has failed. Disgusting. They, we, have failed to give compassion, love, trust and opportunities to streetkids. They still roam the labyrinth of the bustling city, eager to be rescued and keen to continue their childhood in peace, safety and tranquillity. Many, thousands, don’t.

Zashnain

An avid blogger, twitterer and photojournalist, Zashnain Zainal suffers from an incurable addiction to social work, helping marginalised communities since 1989. Nowadays he travels from the plantations of Malaysia to the slums of Thailand. He can be found at zashnain.com and @bedlamfury

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