Life in Fullness – A Place for the Street Children of Herat

Walk through the streets of Herat City, Afghanistan, and you will find a large number of school-age street children dressed in rags, trying to survive in any way they can, often by begging, selling plastic bags, repairing bicycles or labouring for shoemakers. The situation is even worse during Herat’s harsh, cold winter, with thousands of children lacking appropriate clothing, forced to scavenge through rubbish with cold fingers, hoping to find something to eat

A street child follows a bus passenger, imploring, “Please help me. I have not eaten since yesterday. I will pray for you.” Another holds tissues, hoping someone will notice: “It has a good quality. Please buy it. My younger brother and I are hungry.” Such are the scenes in Herat City, in western Afghanistan, a city where the Department of Labour and Social Affairs (DoLSA) estimates there are between 5,000 and 7,000 working street children and child scavengers. The estimates are from a 2007 study but experts agree, the number has increased not decreased.

In February 2011, with the financial support of the Australian government (ANCP), World Vision Afghanistan (WVA) responded to the situation by establishing the first centre for street children. The positive impact of the first phase motivated WVA to initiate a second phase (made possible thanks to assistance from World Vision Korea) from January to December 2015. Through the centre, children can safely access their rights to education, health, and psychosocial well-being. World Vision Afghanistan believes that these rights are a crucial first step to providing vulnerable children, like Abdul, with the opportunity to experience life in all of its fullness.

Abdul, 12, sits on the floor in a corner of a classroom at World Vision’s Street Children Centre immersed in painting. He draws his lines carefully, intent on transferring the image in his head to paper. Once in a while, he stops painting, checks his progress from afar to make sure everything looks okay, and then continues.

Gradually, the painting becomes clearer. He picks it up to show us: a sad-faced child striking something with a blacksmith's hammer.

Abdul looks at the floor shyly while he talks. For the past seven months he has participated in the Street Children Centre where he receives the psychosocial support he needs to cope with his stress and fear. The centre also helps him to prepare to enroll in the government school.

Adbul’s father, Khaliq, is a blacksmith. The worsening economic situation in Herat has made it impossible for Khaliq to afford rent for a workshop. Instead, he works at home together with his children, making spoons, forks, and knives for a meager income. Khaliq’s eldest son is 14 years old. Every afternoon in the open market he tries to sell the utensils his father and brother have made. He is luckier than Abdul, because, although he has to work, he has also managed to attend school.

Abdul's main responsibility is beating the hot iron into the different shapes of the utensils. His mental and physical problems have made it difficult to go to school. He would get up around 4 am every morning to beat the hot iron until 10 am, at which time he was allowed to eat a breakfast of tea and bread and then to play with other children in the alley. At 2 pm, worked resumed and Abdul returned to the heavy smith’s hammer, moving it up and down while daylight turned to darkness.

 I couldn't sleep at night. I spoke with myself at night. 

Night should have provided an opportunity for Abdul to rest his eyes and his ears that rung with the clanging of the smith's hammer, to escape from the kind of harsh work that takes a toll on a child's small hands. But Abdul's nights were not restful. He says that before coming to the Street Children's Centre “I couldn't sleep at night. I spoke with myself at night. I told myself where I should go tomorrow and what games I could [play] with my friends on the street.”

In addition to sleeplessness, Abdul also suffered from recurrent dark thoughts or images, as well as temporary losses of consciousness. He angered quickly and started fighting with his brothers and sisters as well as his friends. He had also been washing his hands obsessively – more than 20 times a day: “I thought my hands were getting dry and if I wouldn’t be able to move my fingers one day so I washed them over and over to make them soft and wet,” he explains, demonstrating by moving his fingers.

Ziagul, Abdul’s mother, was deeply concerned by her son's problems, but she felt helpless. Without the financial means or resources there was nothing she could do. She said “a small piece of iron had gone inside of Abdul’s eye. I had heard there [was] a small clinic for street children and I took him there. It was crowded. A lot of poor mothers and children were in line to be checked by the doctor. I explained all of Abdul’s problems to the doctor,” she says. The doctor took Abdul to Mr. Poya, a World Vision counsellor, who reported,  “while I was talking with Abdul, I noticed he [had] some nervous tics. His eyes and shoulders kept moving suddenly and he couldn’t control them.”

Mr. Poya initiated group counselling with Abdul and his parents to try to find a solution to their problems. In individual counselling, he and Abdul privately discussed Abdul's struggles. Sometimes the parents were invited to be a part of discussions, as many problems were directly related to family. Abdul says that as a result of counselling, his parents' treatment of Abdul and his siblings has improved. “Before, if we made noise or a mistake, my mother slapped our faces. Now, she tries to speak with us and use kind words,” he says.

Mr. Poya also spoke with Abdul's father about decreasing work hours. Though Abdul and his brother still have to work because their father can’t afford to hire daily labours, the hours have decreased. Now he works every morning from 5 to 8 am, after which he is able to visit the centre to access the educational, health, and psychosocial services that are his right.

I am happy coming here and I wish this centre will be here forever.

“I am happy coming here and I wish this centre will be here forever. I want to be a doctor, like Mr.Poya. He talked so well with me and my parents. Through talking and painting I have become better," he says. "I had never even taken a pencil in my hand, but in here, every day I paint and learn reading and writing,” says Abdul, who has become more confident and open. “Before, I got angry [quickly] and would fight with my friends and my brother and sisters. But now, I feel better. I wash my hands only when it is necessary. I sleep well. I don’t faint any more. I have become a normal kid. I am happy.”

World Vision’s Street Children's Centre has been providing health services, education, psycho-social counselling and safe, creative play opportunities for street children since 2011. The project has provided loving care to 5,302 (2,296 boys and 3,006 girls) of the most vulnerable children in Herat. The Clinic and centre are situated in an area of the city where children have easy access to services.

Let’s pray for the children of Afghanistan who are too often victims of the violence and conflict taking place around them. We must care for them - they are the hope for the future of the country.