Saved from street life, children celebrate dignity and share dreams

Students at school for street children impress and inspire.

ISLAMABAD:

When the Mashal Model School opened in Nurpur Shahan in December 2008, Sharif Khan was its first student. It was also the first time Khan, then just ten years old, had seen the inside of a school. He is one of the many children who work around the Bari Imam Shrine in Islamabad washing cars, picking trash and selling flowers and sweets.

Khan had always wanted to go to school, so when the opportunity finally came along, he didn’t care that his father wanted him to work instead of getting a formal education. He also didn’t care that the school was just a one-room establishment. He went for it.

In the winter of 2008, Zeba Husain, an educationist with expertise in early childhood education, was visiting the shrine of Imam Bari in Islamabad. Outside the shrine, she met some children selling flowers. She stopped to hear their stories.

As they spoke, she realised they were extremely vulnerable to violence. Some of them were being constantly bullied by older children. Others had suffered abuse or started taking drugs. Still others were harassed and beaten by the police. Their stories moved Husain into action.

She decided to start a school for them in the area.

Around four years later, Khan and the Mashal Model School have both improved. The school, which started with just 20 students, now operates in a bigger building with over 400 boys and girls from the surrounding areas.

And Khan is in the eighth grade now. He still works on the street on some days, but he has acquired basic computer skills, goes to a private academy in the evenings and, most importantly, he has learnt to respect others and earn respect for himself.

“Before we attended this school, we didn’t know how to behave with others,” Khan said. “We would argue with the police and they would beat us up. Now, we treat others with respect and try to ensure our peers’ well being outside of school.”

Khan said the general attitude of the community, especially their own parents, toward the children has also changed for the better since they started going to school.

On Thursday, Khan danced to regional songs with his fellow students at a ceremony at the Mashal Model School. The students were celebrating the Global Dignity Day 2012, an event organised with the support of Right To Play (RTP).

RTP, an international organisation that uses sports and games to educate and empower children, has just started collaborating with Mashal Model, RTP’s media coordinator Ali Khayyam said. He said RTP will conduct trainings for Mashal Model’s 23 teachers on child development, youth engagement and sport specific resources.

At Thursday’s ceremony, children performed skits and talked about dignity being a fundamental human right irrespective of race, religion or colour. “Earn respect by showing respect,” was the slogan of the day.

In one skit, children presented Abdul Sattar Edhi as a role model for human dignity and caring for humanity. In another tableau, children showed the difference between an employer who values his workers’ dignity and one who does not.

“I have visited over 3,000 schools, but I’ve rarely seen the level of confidence in children as I’ve seen here,” Iqbal Ali Jatoi, RTP country manager, said at the event.

Tina Nunn, wife of German ambassador Cyril Nunn, praised the school. “It’s such a good approach,” she said. “Just see the faces of the children brimming with happiness and you can see the effectiveness of this initiative.”

The non-profit school, which has a monthly expense of around Rs100,000, is run entirely through donations, Husain said. It only charges Rs50 or Rs25 from the children per month and provides them uniforms, books, food as well as basic medical care.

She said these children earned their own living but lived in a perpetual state of fear of violence and harassment. We’re trying to provide them with education, respect and trust, so they develop self-esteem and feel proud about themselves, she said.

“We at Mashal don’t need brilliant stories or inspiring speeches, we talk to our children, laugh with them, listen to them carefully and tell them they are great and have a bright future,” Husain told The Express Tribune. “Maybe that’s all that is required to give them dignity.”

The school has students from different ethnicities including children of people who moved to Islamabad after the Swat operation or floods in the south of the country.

They all have different ambitions. Khan wants to become an airplane pilot. Hidayat Khan, another student who used to scavenge trash before joining the school, wants to become a doctor. Perhaps one of them will go on to open more schools for street children across Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 26^th, 2012.