Reminders

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Dear Friends,
I have found that its always a good idea to reconnect with our reasons for doing what we do. The lion's share of my time with Basic Needs is taken up by fundraising, meetings, events, and administrative issues. I am happy to do these things because they are important and necessary, but they are not the reason why I started Basic Needs. Basic Needs was born out of passion and is sustained by that passion. Today I decided that it would be a good idea to pay a visit to the slum that most of our children in Dhaka are from. Its relatively small, perhaps a thousand people, and sits over a kind of marsh. The houses are of tin and bamboo, and are raised to prevent flooding. Water sources are from an open pipe, and latrines are unhygenic and shared by several families. Paradoxically, these conditions are actually much better than what many of these families faced in the rural areas, where food and work are scarce in the face of massive overpopulation. The issues in the slums are issues of public health (too many people in too small a space with too few resources), but more importantly, they are issues of social fracture. Unlike in the villages, where families are very close-knit, once one enters the big city, much of the social support system is lost. Many of these homes are run by single mothers, either widowed, abandoned, or separated from their husbands for reasons of work.

However important these overarching issues are, it is impossible not to be inspired by the spirit of the children that swarm about you, wanting a picture or to say hello. These children could be the next doctors, lawyers, engineers, politicians, and teachers of their nation, if given the chance. I don't believe in the myth of the "happy poor," (Gandhi rightly stated that "poverty is the worst form of violence"), but I do believe in the strength of the human spirit to survive despite hardship. I hope you enjoy the pictures I have posted above, and that they give some glimpse into the inner beauty of these kids.

P.S. This post is dedicated to a little boy named Babi (or Babu). When I was running this morning, I passed by a child on the street. His clothes were in tatters and he had a begging bowl under his arm. This is not uncommon, but I noticed tears streaming down his face. I stopped and tried to find out what was the matter, but my incredibly poor Bangla (the local language) prevented me from finding out the problem. He walked away, and I ran on. When I went back later with a Bengali friend, we couldn't find him.