OUR STUDENTS

The 21 students at StreetWise, aged from 4 to 12 years old, worked or lived on the streets near the Gulshan-1 Circle in Dhaka before joining the program. Most of the children lived in the Badda and Korail slums with their families, with either one or two parents as guardians and in two cases, uncles and grandparents.

After working and playing on the streets each day, they returned to their families, or sometimes, even slept on the streets. To help their families subsist, the children worked odd jobs selling flower garlands and trinkets, served as coolies at markets, rummaged garbage dumps to collect and sell scraps of paper or plastic or worked at garment factories.

The students at our school each have their unique backgrounds and also a shared one. They have faced poverty, hunger and abuse on many different levels. These stark living and working conditions have produced devastating social outcomes for the children, including:

• High Rates of Illiteracy
• Chronic Malnutrition
• Acute Health and Hygiene Deficiencies
• Lack of Proper Shelter and Mentoring
• Physical & Sexual Abuse
• Dangerous Labor & Working Conditions
• Street Labor Exploitation
• Exposure to Drugs and Crime

The Streetwise program has iteratively developed and expanded to address these outcomes, under three Services:

• Learning Services
• Student Services
• Family Services