Tucked under the 11-year-old’s filthy, tattered shirt is a half-empty yellow glue tin.
“It gives me a sense of peace,” he says, taking a break so he can draw the strong, noxious fumes into his young lungs. “I forget my hunger for a moment and dream of things that I cannot do in my real life.”
Myanmar’s long-time military rulers handed over power to a nominally civilian government three years ago, leading to the lifting of Western sanctions and a burst of economic activity.
More than 500 foreign businesses have invested $50 billion. But as poor families move from rural areas to the big city in hopes of finding work, many find themselves struggling.
Without education or money to buy food — their families often squatting on land illegally seized by gangs — children are most vulnerable. Many are left to fend for themselves, easily influenced by the bad habits of other street kids, from prostitution and gambling to drug abuse and gang-style extortion, said Aung Kyaw Myint, local leader of an organisation that provides help for homeless kids.
Trash collection Every morning before sunrise, a growing number of street kids can be seen picking through garbage, climbing on the heaps of trash at city dumps, or sleeping on the sidewalk. Rain or shine, Oo and his 15-year-old brother Ko Min are among them.
The boys say they earn $2 to $3 a day around half of which goes to their parents and the other half to a small tin of glue they share between themselves.
Oo no longer imagines he will one day be a doctor. And Ko Min says even his more modest goal, being a soldier, now seems totally unrealistic.
