A Mother's Fight to Send Her Children Back to School
The words of her eldest son still echo painfully in Nargis's heart."Ma, all my friends are sitting for their first public exams today. If you hadn't stopped my schooling, I would have been taking the exam too. My life is ruined."Sitting on the threshold of her fragile one-room shack in a crowded Dhaka slum, Nargis let the tears fall.
"For a moment, I felt like I had killed my children's future with my own hands," she says quietly. "But how helpless must a mother be, to take her children out of school and send them to work?"
Two years ago, life looked different. Nargis's three children went to school, played with friends, dreamed about their futures like any other child. Then her husband was diagnosed with tuberculosis. As his health failed, so did the family's only income, while medical bills only grew. One by one, the children left their classrooms.
Her eldest son took a job in garment factory. Nargis spent long nights making paper bags for a few extra coins, but it was never enough. Soon, seven-year-old Rukhsar traded her schoolbag for stacks of paper and glue, becoming what neighbours called a "Thongawalli", a paper-bag maker girl.
"There were days we survived on one meal," Nargis recalls, wiping her eyes with the edge of her worn sari. "I knew how important school was. There was simply no other way."Rukhsar didn't understand. "She would beg, 'Please let me go back to school.' I'd say, 'When your father gets better.' Honestly, I didn't know if that day would come."
Still, Nargis kept asking around, kept listening for any way back. Eventually, she heard of a school supported through World Vision Bangladesh’s LIFE Project. She gathered her courage, walked in, and told the teachers her story. They listened and enrolled Rukhsar.
Rukhsar danced through the house: "I'll go to school again! I'll study! I'll play with my friends!"
Now, every morning, she prepares for school on her own. Poverty hasn't disappeared, but each day, as Rukhsar walks to class, Nargis feels something she thought she'd lost hope.