Story of A Slum Kid: Jannatul Wants to be A Doctor

A 7-year-old innocent and intelligent girl Jannatul attends class KG at Chalantika Slum Children Development Project (CSCDP) which is operated by ADRA in Bangladesh. She lives with her parents at Chalantika Slum in Dhaka.

Her father’s name is Md. Jahidul and her mother’s name is Lipi Begum. Her father is a farmer and her mother is a housewife. She has a younger brother. Their family is comprised of four members. Jannatul's family came to Dhaka from the Jhalokathi district which is located in the southern part of Bangladesh.

Jannatul’s family migrated to Dhaka as her father couldn’t get a suitable job in the village. Jannatul is not less deserving than the others who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Unfortunately, her family couldn’t provide her with other basic needs except for three meals per day.

Since his income is too small, Jahidul won’t be able to afford the educational cost of Jannatul. Thus, he was searching for a way to educate her child. He came to know about the CSCDP center from his neighbor. He admitted Jannatul to the CSCDP center.

Not only in Bangladesh but in all the under-develop countries the scenario of the slum area is almost the same. Life is full of struggles in the slum. Especially children are mostly deprived of their basic education. They have to fight against gruesome vulnerabilities constantly.

They are living in a slum that lacks all the basic amenities. Their house is made of bamboo with a CI sheet roof. The rooms are very tiny in the slum. They can’t get the water for drinking properly which disrupts their daily life. They are suffering a lot due to the lack of a garbage management system. People throw garbage everywhere in the Chalantika slum which causes odor. This is the real scenario of the Chalantika slum in Dhaka.

Jannatul is friendly, polite, and gentle. She can understand his mistake by herself and she loves her friends. She wants to be a doctor and wants to help the poor who doesn’t have money to get better treatment.

“I want to study medical science and explore medical fields to help underprivileged people like me and those who require medical help,” Jannatul said confidently about her life goal.

“I’ve learned a lot of good things from the CSCDP center. I’ve learned how to maintain proper health and hygiene. I’ve also learned how to take care of myself and my family. Apart from this, our teacher taught us how to treat our neighbors,” said Jannatul.

Jannatul and her family are very grateful to the ADRA Bangladesh CSCDP project for making their life a better one and obtaining the opportunity to make a better future. They also thanked ADRA Czech Republic and Malfini for supporting ADRA Bangladesh to run this project and helping the underprivileged community in Chalantika Slum.