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| The
Ragpicker Child |
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What
do you see when you're looking
at me?
My clothes are all tatters,
my hair full of fleas.
My body is battered, my
feet always bare,
But I have a heart, and
need someone to care.
A long time ago, I had a
mother,
A father, a sister, an aunt,
and a brother.
Where are they now? The
weather is cold.
I need someone to love me,
someone to hold.
Each morning at dawn when
people start waking,
The fires are all lit, but
I huddle shaking.
The cold and the wet just
eats at my bones,
I need someone to love me,
someone to hold.
If I rise very early the
pickings are best,
I dodge the night watchman
and fight off the rats.
The other rag pickers, they
are my brothers,
My father, my sister, my
aunt, and my mother.
We all need a family, someone
of our own,
A fire, and a mother, and
love in a home.
Look in my eyes, I'm just
a child.
But my body is old and my
head very wise.
Christmas to me, is like
any day,
The rubbish is picked, and
the rats chased away.
So tell me why Christmas
is special to some,
And who is this God, and
who is his Son?
Where is he now, can he
see me,
As I pick through the rubbish,
and scratch at the fleas?
You tell me this story,
a baby was born,
In a manger he lay, with
the beasts in a stall
And Mary his mother, loved
him so much,
But she knew from the start,
He was given to us.
A Gift He was called, from
our Father above,
And sent to this earth,
for each one to love.
Can I be this baby, just
for a while,
And have someone to love
me, and someone to smile.
And perhaps I'll believe,
that the Lord is my helper,
And be not afraid, when
man tries to hurt me.
So next time you see me,
see Mary's child,
Not a dirty rag picker,
discarded and wild.
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| By
Carole
Edgecox |
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| WHY
BECOME A RAG-PICKER OR STREET CHILD? |
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Who
would become a Street Child or Rag
picker by choice? This was a question
frequently asked by us. Several factors
emerged as the provoking reasons.
This life-style is forced onto these
children for survival. They lack the
basic needs that most of us enjoy;
they come from violent and broken
homes, perhaps second marriages where
the mother has been burnt to death
with kerosene, the father demanding
further dowry from the wife’s
family to feed his drunkenness. The
children from the first marriage not
wanted (more mouths to feed), beatings,
starvation and deprivation of security
and love are daily occurrences. Some
are forced from a very young age to
work and earn money, a few are influenced
by peer pressure, and some are orphans
fighting a daily battle to survive.
Boys unable to tolerate the daily
beatings and dysfunctional family
life run away and become street
children. Girls are forced to look
after younger family members and
even have to beg for their own survival
and that of the younger child. They
are treated as slaves in the home
and many are forced into prostitution
at a very early age.
To be a street child is
to live a life of hell.
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