Stuff like this reaffirms your faith in humanity. There are some decent people left in this world afterall. Allah Bless them… remember these folks in your duas.
**Self-help for child drug addicts**, Chiade O’Shea, BBC, 14 June 2004
A crowd of children, many carrying bottles of solvents to inhale, gathers in the shadow of Lahore’s majestic Badshahi mosque.
The children are waiting for a motorised rickshaw carrying food, clothing and basic medicines. The rickshaw bears a yellow and black smiley face logo that the children themselves chose. They also settled on the charity’s name, Project Smile.
One of the boys, Sunny, stands out from the crowd. At 15, he is considered a boss and a role model. “I have given up the drugs,” Sunny tells a project worker, in an effort to prove himself to them. Later, he concedes “Well, I smoke marijuana in the mornings, but no more glue”.
Sunny laughs and the adults smile. “It is good, he is trying,” says Ahmed Bakhsh Awan, one of the project’s founders and outreach workers.
A concerted effort not to moralise or judge the children for taking drugs stems from a belief that they must not be alienated at any cost.
It also comes from experience - 80% of the charity’s organisers and field workers have themselves been drug users in the past.
Awan explained: “We too have been stigmatised by the community, by the family and we know what acceptance is and what it really means - acceptance without any condition.”
Although a history of drug use would be considered shameful by many in this Islamic nation, Mr Awan insists that having this experience in common with the children is “our best asset”. According to the charity’s research, 95% of Lahore’s 5,000 homeless children sniff solvents and many take harder drugs. Inhaling Smad Bond, a cheap petroleum-based shoe adhesive, appears to be the cheapest, most accessible psychological escape from the constant dangers in their lives.
Sunny, who looks old beyond his years despite his downy moustache, says that many of the children have been the victims of violence, including sex crimes, while living rough. “People hassle us for sex. They ask for sexual favours. We have blades to defend ourselves, and knives sometimes.”
Dr Saeed, medical officer on the Smile rickshaw, said the children suffer a variety of conditions. “Chest problems and abdominal problems are due to Smad Bond inhaling, but skin diseases and others are due to living on the streets. Also, there are STIs (sexually transmitted infections) here.”
Dr Saeed and his colleagues are proud of their progress in the 10 months since the Smile mobile unit started touring the city. A free lunch and dietary supplements have improved nutrition. Washing facilities and medicated shampoos have defeated the lice infestations that affected almost all of the 452 children who have registered with Project Smile to date.
They also give homeless children haircuts and check their fingernails - attentions few adults have afforded them in the past.
Providing emotional as well as basic medical support is an approach that appears to be paying off. Psychological counselling has reduced incidences of self-mutilating cuts by 90% since September. Most of the children show the trademark scars crisscrossing their arms and chests, but Usman has more than most. The scars look painful. Many are half a centimetre wide.
He picks at a fresh one that will shortly be cleaned and dressed, like the dozens before, by Dr Saeed. “I do it to get rid of the police,” he says. “If I’m caught, I start cutting and the blood starts oozing, so they have to spare me.”
Other children offer the explanation that they mutilate their young bodies to raise their begging earnings, but the reality is that many suffer from serious psychological problems before they reach double figures.
Project Smile has started giving the children advice on health, earning money while homeless, safe sex and relating well with other children and the authorities. Those who learn well and make progress with their drug addictions will become peer educators, teachers for the other children. They will be rewarded with prizes such as high quality shoes, but most importantly, this title will give them status and respect.
As a natural leader, Sunny has been identified as a good candidate for the programme.
“I’ve decided to quit the drugs because I want to be a volunteer on the staff of Smile,” he explains. “I want to do something positive. I want to be recognised by my family, by my mother, by the community that I have done something good.”
Isn’t it a wonderful cause. Yahi asli shakal hoti hai Musulman ki… to do this type of work for children, for which you are paid pennies in this world, but your sawaab in the next world would be incalculable (Insha’Allah).