Allauddin lives with his parents and four siblings in the slum community at Shivaji Nagar.Like the hundreds of other children there, Allauddin’s regular haunt was the vast waste dumping ground that surrounds the slum.
Four years ago, Allauddin had dropped out of fourth standard. As a teenager with little interest in education, Allauddin was roaming through the trash when our community workers met him last year. He was immediately enrolled into our Open Basic Education course for drop outs, but he used to miss classes frequently.
It turned out that Allauddin wasn’t bunking school to simply play. As the eldest of five children, it was his duty to buy wood from the market for his mother to cook at home. His father was busy as a coolie labourer and his mother worked as an embroiderer. Even so, the family was too poor to afford a gas connection.
On the days that money was tight and the family couldn’t afford even the wood, Allauddin would forage through the dumping ground and collect stray pieces of firewood so that his family could eat that day.
Poverty and hunger were stealing Allauddin’s education from him.
Our community workers intervened into this situation and counselled Allauddin’s parents about the importance of prioritising education and the dangers of child labour. His parents began to send him for classes regularly, and one of his younger brothers, Gulam Abdul, has recently joined our kindergarten classes too.
Thank you for seeing the treasure in these young lives and investing in them for a better future!
