Vietnam street kids take poignant snapshot
HO CHI MINH CITY - Tran Dinh Phuoc was desperate to change his life. No
more stealing, no more telling lies and no more fighting.
But in his line of work it was pretty much against the
odds.
At 15, Phuoc was shining shoes for little more than 35
cents a pair on the unforgiving streets of Vietnam's
southern Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon.
Then, out of the blue, he got the chance to learn the
rudiments of photography on a borrowed camera.
A foreign aid organisation had decided to give some
street children in Vietnam's commercial capital the
chance to speak out -- not so much in words, but in
pictures.
For a few weeks this month, up to 20 street children
have been displaying 100 photographs at the city's
Youth Cultural House in a graphic depiction of their daily
battle to survive.
Each picture has a simple but poignant title.
''My future must be better,'' reads the caption on a
picture of a young boy with his head in his hands.
``Praying to God that I can sell everything this evening,''
reads another of a small boy pushing a cart laden with
coconuts through the teeming city streets at dusk.
``CHILDREN OF THE DUST''
Until now, children like Phuoc have been just a statistic
of grinding poverty -- evidence of the widening gap
between rich and poor as Vietnam tries to leave behind
a legacy of war that for decades shackled its economic
growth.
The country is still among the world's poorest, with
annual per capita incomes barely above $300.
And for the past three years, Phuoc has been one of up
to 15,000 children colloquially known in this southern
city of five million people as ``children of the dust.''
Most, forced onto the streets by poverty, live
hand-to-mouth shining shoes, selling postcards or
begging.
Street children are becoming more common across
Southeast Asia as a deepening economic crisis plunges
greater numbers into poverty.
Phuoc is now one of the luckier ones. He's not just
learning a skill, but getting a basic education and living in
a shelter for boys.
But he and the others who contributed to the exhibition
of photographs, which will be shown in London and
Edinburgh this year, are only too aware of the ones left
behind.
``They all pray for the chance to change their lives,''
wrote Phuoc alongside a photograph he took of a young
boy just starting to learn the art of shoe shining.
''I've used my pictures to draw attention to children
younger than me who are still on the streets,'' said
17-year-old Truong Ngoc Lam.
``Even in our dreams we search for a better life,'' says
By Thuy, a veteran shoe shiner at 14. ``But who will
help us find it?''
GOOD SAMARITAN PROVIDES A HOME
The city has about 35 shelters trying to take children off
the streets. Most shelters survive on little more than
donations and only scratch the surface of a deepening
problem.
``An increasing number of children are forced onto the
streets because their families simply cannot afford to
keep them,'' said Tran Minh Hai, who at 27 runs the
Green Bamboo Shelter, a haven for homeless boys.
Six years ago he gave up his job as a mechanic and took
a big pay cut to work with street children. He earns little
more than $17 a week. But his shelter, which Phuoc
calls home, faces closure at year's end unless he can find
a donor.
About 100 boys between the ages of eight and 16 pass
through Hai's 20-bed shelter every year. He feeds,
clothes and tries to educate them.
More importantly, he hopes to send them home.
``At the shelter they have better food, a better place to
live and sleep, but it can never replace the dignity of
growing up within your own family,'' he told Reuters.
Hai has had some success. About half of his boys
eventually return to their families.
Thousands of others can only live in hope.
``I want to be a good photographer and a movie star,''
says Phuoc. ``I hope my dreams come true.''
By Mary Binks - Reuters - September 24, 1998.
|