A Documentary Journey to Meet the Street Children of Pakistan with Muslim Charity
Last March, Muslim Charity invited Samira Oulaillah, a documentary producer and photojournalist, to go to Pakistan to document and to raise charities for street children. She was met in Islamabad by Irfan Rajput (our Director of International Programmes and Policy) and Zubair Shah (our Pakistan Programmes Coordinator) and the rest of the crew to embark on a poignant journey to Peshawar before heading down, further east, to Lahore, to meet street children.
Nothing will have prepared Samira to the tragic sight and high number of street children in Peshawar. Little souls as young as five years old, wandering in the streets, hungry, unwashed and exposed to the worst kinds of abuse including sexual abuse with no one to protect them, no one to look out for them, left to their tragic fate in this merciless and violent adult world. It was very difficult for Samira to wear the hat of a journalist and simply document the lives of kids without showing emotions and shedding tears because when one is a reporter and producer one has to remain robust and placid in order to get on with the given assignment. Nonetheless, we are all humans. Seeing some children who sleep in sewage holes for instance, buried alive in filth, will break the strongest soul. Read More…