Orphans in the Pandemic

The Covid-19 has impeded the livelihoods of orphans and street children in Bangladesh. The street children are more vulnerable to the Coronavirus as they are moving in the market places, roads, etc. without maintaining any isolation or any precautions and sleeping in crowd with other street children in open places under a shade or tree.

According to the SOS Children’s Villages in Bangladesh, around 4.4 million orphaned children are living in a vulnerable situation while infant mortality rate is 41.1 per one thousand. A huge number of orphans are working as child labourers in different places, like markets, garages, etc. without having minimum awareness about Coronavirus and have no way of maintaining any precautions while most of them are living in dirty places. A huge number of child labourers in the city are working in the car-repairing workshops and most of them used to stay in the garage.

The most dreadful message is that most of the corrupted people are using the orphan and street children to engage them in corruption and making illegal money or getting illegal benefit. They used the orphan and street children to involve in illegal activities very often. As a result, these orphan and street children are thrown in jail for their crimes while some of them are abused and subjected to the most atrocious violence.

 A number of real stories can be shared. The two brothers Ayub and Shakil are street children. They lost their father a few years ago. Their mother is now a maidservant trying to help the family survive and cannot supervise her children. By this time, the elder one Ayub involved in illegal activities and drug addiction. Shakil is still helping his mother by collecting plastic bottles and tin materials and selling them, often living overnight on the streets. His mother is now very much afraid that Shakil will become like Ayub.

Gita Rani is a disabled young girl. Her father died in 2015. Then all the liabilities of the family were shifted to her mother who started working as a day labourer to maintain her family. Due to Corona pandemic, she is not getting any job as before and passing very difficult time along with her physically challenged daughter.

Selina Khatun is a thirteen year old disadvantaged girl having no homestead land and was living in a roadside hut with her parents. In 2015, one day at midnight, a truck has driven through their hut and her mother was critically injured and died. After death of her mother, her father left Selina and is living in Rangpur. He does not provide any support to his daughter.

Khadiza Khatun, a fifteen years old girl lost her father who committed suicide in 2008. After death of her father, her mother got married again and is living with her husband at Barisal. After that Khadiza is living with her grandmother with difficulties while Corona pandemic makes more critical.

Sumon is a six year old boy. His mother died of rickets in 2015 when he was one year old. His father got married again and left Sumon. After that Sumon is living with her aunt Shadhona Rani who is a beggar. She begs from door-to-door and tries to arrange their food. Due to Corona pandemic, she is not getting as before while they are passing their days with great difficulties, sometimes passing days with no food at all.

Amir Hamza is a thirteen year old boy. His parents were working in a brickfield. At ten years of age, Amir went to the brickfield to earn something for his parents. When he was working, unfortunately his right arm has gone inside the machine and cut off. He also lost the thumb of his left hand. From that time, he is unable to do any work and not getting any support to survive during Corona pandemic. 

Knowing the above facts, a US-based humanitarian organisation PSDI (Partners in Sustainable Development International) is coming-up to extend their support to the vulnerable orphans in Bangladesh through a local organisation named PEP (Poverty Eradication Program). They developed a model to identify the most vulnerable orphaned children and support them a package components with two goats, 50 kg rice, two kg pulses, one litre edible oil, one kg salt, three kg wheat flour, 500 gram detergent soap, 15 eggs and one set shirt-pant or one set girls’ dresses.

The total costs are around Tk. 35,000 ($500) per orphaned child. Through these supports, it is expected that the goats could be reared for their income raising activity while other commodities would be used to survive during pandemic. It’s also an extended plan to provide some additional supports regarding their income raising activities, so that these families can survive in a sustainable way without any further support.

To select the most vulnerable orphaned children, the team members of PEP are not following too much about the definition of ‘Orphan’ as listed in the dictionary; rather they considered the degree of most vulnerability of the children. By this time, they selected 300 orphaned children who have lost one or both parents, mainly the fathers. It is a great struggle for the mothers when they lose their husbands and must raise the children from young ages.

Based on the available fund from PSDI, PEP is providing such supports to the 35 most vulnerable children and gradually will support to the remaining vulnerable children as listed. Although the figure 300 vulnerable children are very minimum numbers, as thousands most vulnerable children are passing their terrible lives with insecurity and lack of help. This may be treated as an example for the human being, which anyone or any organisations can replicate in favour of humanity.

The Board Chair of PSDI Mr. Robert Scanlon along with the Executive Director of PSDI Ms. Nancy Jernigan and previous Executive Director Ms. Virginia Klein visited Bangladesh to see PEP’s activities in Dhaka, Bogura, Netrokona, Kishoreganj and Chandpur. Mr. Scanlon mentioned that it was gratifying to see and meet many families who have benefited from PEP’s support and have been able to escape from the extreme poverty they had suffered from.

Mr. Scanlon also indicated that “In my current role as the PSDI President and Board Chair, I am dedicated to growing PSDI's donor base and significantly increasing the support that PSDI can provide to PEP.  We all know how vast the need is and that the poor need our support.  The Lord hears the cry of the poor.  We are called to respond and be His instruments.  We look forward to the future work that PSDI and PEP can accomplish together.”

The Executive Director of PSDI Ms. Nancy Jernigan pointed, “A child is never as fragile as they are when they lose a parent. A family is never as fragile as they are when they lose the head of the household. We are proud of our work serving these families – providing basic needs of food and clothing, as well as important assistance with education for the children and providing an economic development opportunity for them to pursue. We have already seen the difference it makes in their lives”.

Being a development worker, we are not considering this programme as a part of our regular job, while it is something more than that! We should proceed towards the sense of humanity. A number of human hearts from the United States have extended their hands to these children through PSDI and PEP. We are expressing our gratefulness to these people for their special generosity in helping these children to build a better future for themselves through food, education, health care and economic assets.

The writer is Board Chair of Poverty Eradication Program (PEP) in Bangladesh and can be reached at: mgneogi@gmail.com