Rabu: I used to be afraid. Now I know I can make it
The morning air in the Calantika slum is heavy and humid. Narrow alleyways are waking up to a new day – the noise of traffic mingles with children's laughter and the metallic clatter of cooking pots.
At a small wooden stall on wheels, Rabu carefully pours hot tea into glasses. Steam rises from the kettle. Beside her is a pile of small bags filled with homemade chanachur, a spicy local snack. She packed them before dawn, before her sons woke up.
“This stall is a source of hope for me,” she says. “It makes me feel that I can provide for my children.”
A lost childhood
“When I was little, I did not go to school. I worked. We had nothing – only the fear of what might come,” she recalls quietly.
Rabu lost her father when she was still a baby. Her mother was left alone with six children. The only piece of land they owned was taken by the river, and with it disappeared their last sense of security. At the age of ten, Rabu began working as a domestic helper to help provide food for the family.
“Sometimes they shouted at me. Sometimes they beat me. I could not defend myself – we needed the money.”
Marriage brought no relief
She came to Dhaka hoping for a better life. Instead, she ended up in the Calantika slum – among overcrowded alleyways, corrugated-iron shelters and constant noise.
When she married, she hoped for a peaceful life. But her husband already had a first wife and children, and financial pressure led to arguments and violence. Leaving was not an option – it would have meant hunger and homelessness.
She had two sons. Just fifteen days after giving birth, she had to return to work. “My children had to eat. That was all I lived for at the time.”
At 38, she learned to write her own name
A turning point came when her older son, Nahid, began attending the Calantika Education Centre run by the humanitarian organisation ADRA. “I saw that he was safe and learning. For the first time in my life, I could breathe a little easier,” Rabu recalls.
She soon enrolled in a literacy course for women herself. She was nearly 38 when she wrote her own name for the first time. In 2024, she also completed a food-processing course and received start-up support of 5,000 BDT (approx. £35 (CZK 1,000)). She bought a simple cooker, basic ingredients and a small packaging machine for making homemade snacks. It was her first step towards earning an income of her own.
When another crisis struck
When her husband broke his leg and could no longer work as a rickshaw driver, the entire responsibility for the family fell on Rabu. “Before, I would not have known what to do. This time, I had a plan.”
Using the skills and equipment she had acquired, she opened her own stall selling tea, biscuits and chanachur. She now works as a domestic helper in just one household, spending the rest of her day running her own business. “I earn my own money. It is not much, but it is enough. And, most importantly, I am not as frightened as I used to be.”
She wants to give her sons what she never had
Her older son Nahid leaves the slum with a schoolbag over his shoulder. He runs past his mother's stall, waves to her and disappears down the alley on his way to school. Rabu smiles: “I want them to study. I want to give them what I never had.”
She pours another cup of tea as customers come and go. Her life is still not easy, but it is no longer simply a struggle for survival. “I used to be afraid of life. Now I know I can cope. And that my children will have a different future.”
Help children and their parents build a better future
Through the Calantika project, Rabu gained access to education, new skills and start-up support that helped her become more self-reliant. Many other families living in the challenging conditions of the slum need the same opportunity to build a better future.
Thank you!
