The Rana Plaza collapse is a grim reminder of the perils of excessive greed and corruption, bringing about the deadliest garment-factory disaster in history, but it is also a polite reminder that hope can persist even in the most desperate times.
Perhaps the biggest victims of the disaster which killed over 1,100 people and destroyed dreams of thousands more were the children of those killed or survived to live the life of an amputee. They were left with a bleak future.
Many of the children who used to attend schools before ceased doing, not only out of the post-disaster psychological trauma, but also because they were simply unable to do. They had little or no money to afford schooling and no assurances of meals.
“After the tragedy, we noticed a significant dip in class attendance. Many children stopped coming at all,” said Gazi Shahana Islam, headmistress of Imandipur Govt. Primary School, situated around one and a half kilometre off the Plaza.
Teachers waited for a week to see if they come back and, when they didn’t, started visiting their homes individually.
“It transpired that those students, who either lost one of their parents or both, were upset. So we waited for about a month for their recovery, but more than two months in the accident, most of them couldn’t still make it to the school.”
The teachers then found out the more pressing reason for their absence, which had nothing to do with their mental shock.
“Some children lost their mothers, some their fathers, all earning members of their family. With their deaths came money crisis, which created another problem: scarcity of food,” Shahana said.
“In many families, there was no one to cook in the morning. Some of our female students had to do the cooking themselves and other household chores, and some boys were busy helping out their parents.
“Some of them who managed to come had to starve till afternoon.”
That gave Shahana the idea to manage a day-meal for the children. So funds were raised from locals and teachers agreed to donate part of their salary for buying foods. But that was not enough.
“In October, an NGO called Sheva Nari o Shishu Kallyan Kendra came to our help and started supplying two meals a day for the 30 students who lost their parents and had no one to cook at home in the morning,” Shahana said.
“And now, as expected, a good number of the absentees have returned.”
The organisation rented an office near the school to organise their affair. Locals, friends of teachers and the NGO’s employees donated large sums of money voluntarily.
“Our initial plan is to continue this programme for four more months; by that time we will have decided what to do afterwards,” said Bulbul Ahmed Joy, the monitoring and evaluation officer of Sheva Nari o Shishu Kallyan Kendra.
He further said there are still a large number of dropouts and absentees in other schools and colleges around Savar, who couldn’t resume their studies because of financial constraints or problems at home.
“I am lucky that I am fighting for some of these dropouts. But I don’t know what will happen when the donations dry up,” he added.
In this regard, Shahana said: “I think the government and affluent people should do something about these children, so that they can rebuild their life which was shadowed by the tragedy.”