Your support is offering a lifeline to street dwellers in Bangladesh

Nazma prepares food at her home in Paltan to sell at local offices in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Photo: Abbie Trayler-Smith /Panos Pictures for Concern Worldwide

News2 August 2017Clare Ahern

Thanks to your generous support, Concern's homeless centres in Bangladesh are transforming lives and restoring hope and dignity to people living in extreme poverty.

Our 12 centres in Dhaka and nearby Chittagong City are welcoming as many as 260 people every month – specifically women and children who have been living in poverty and danger on the streets. We’re giving them fresh drinking water, regular meals, healthcare and, above all, a place to be safe.

Nazma's Story

Nazma Begum and her daughter Suraiya lived on the streets in Dhaka before finding our centre in the Paltan district. They had no security, no shelter and no access to sanitation. Suraiya could use the bathroom at her school, but Nazma had to wait until darkness and use the drains.

Nazma Begum and her 16-year-old daughter Suraiya at their home in Paltan, Dhaka. Photo: Abbie Trayler-Smith / Concern Worldwide

Leaving the streets behind forever

Thanks to your support, Nazma has been able to pull her family out of poverty and she now runs a successful catering company from her small home in Dhaka. And Suraiya is the president of the local Youth Committee run by Concern – raising awareness of domestic violence and child marriage.

Giving people dignity and basic citizen's rights is another crucial role for our centres – staff help mothers get birth registration certificates for their children, and national identity cards, and work to reduce the social stigma around the most poor and vulnerable. It’s a truly life-changing programme – and, because of your support, we can continue to help families like Nazma’s leave the streets behind forever.

Fighting for a better tomorrow

Among the 2.8 million urban extreme poor in Bangladesh, pavement dwellers account for at least 4% or 112,000 people. Living in the harshest conditions, they are deprived of their socio-economic, political and human rights every day.

With limited or no access to shelter, healthcare, education, water, or sanitation, survival is a daily struggle. The need for centres like those run by Concern is great as they are the lifeline that families like Nazma and Suraiya need to survive.