I started with 10 children and now it’s 30 children.

New Year, New Class, New Books, New Dreams… 2022

Dear Friends,

All my 30 students have been promoted to their new classes and they have received their new books. With excitement and happiness they all were shining like stars. It’s a great pleasure for me to share these radiant faces with my friends. Without you, nothing was possible. All these children send their love and gratitude to all of you.

As you all know, in 2020 I took the responsibility for their complete education for my entire life. For that, I am regularly visiting their homes and family to assess their situations. The years are passing for them in the blink of an eye!

I started with 10 children and now it’s 30 children.

Hopefully, in comeing years I will be able to admit and shift more child laborers from their workplace to school.

For more than 15 years, I have been working on the child labor situation in Bangladesh. From the beginning of my photography career, I wanted to change the situation and raise awareness of this issue. However, I was not at all happy seeing these changes happening so very slowly in our society! Therefore, I decided to change peoples’ lives directly and I started with those people who I had photographed and those with whom I was already working.

I started giving training and helped set up businesses for people in need; especially the parents of child laborers. With these businesses I arranged for each of the families, they could earn more money and send their children to school instead of factories.

To get working children to school, I had to go door to door many times requesting that their parents send them to school. Finally, I have been able to convince some of the parents about the importance of education.

I motivated them to send their children to school. It was not at all easy. For that, I had to take full financial responsibility for these kids with expenses such as their admission fees, tuition fees, daily food, books, clothes and also to financially compensate their parents for the entire amount of money they would have earned each month if they had worked instead of going to school. I will also have to bear all the children’s expenses to ensure that they will continue to go to school!

Like these 30 children, more than four million children are struggling in our country. Maybe it is difficult, but it is not impossible to give hope to these 4 million children. If only every capable person would give a hand for one child, miracles would happen which could transform our society into a better-educated population who could better contribute to the development of our country, a benefit for all of us.

Sending my respect and prayers.

Love and light!

_GMB Akash

GMB Akash

Photojournalist and Profile Photographer at Panos Pictures, London

Founder of GMB Akash Institute of Photography, Dhaka

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