A lot of inking, without much thinking…

At times, it seems that it’s the very nature of childhood which proves to be one of just-one‘s greatest obstacles in successfully achieving our overall goal of helping the children we work with to work towards creating brighter futures for themselves. Children, being children, tend not to see the bigger picture and, without much life experience to draw upon, generally have little understanding of the long-term consequences of many of the choices they so often make in haste. In that ever-elusive ‘ideal world‘, kids benefit from the genuine guidance and support of a caring network of family and friends who help steer them along the path towards a good life. Sadly, many of the children we work with here in Nepal don’t always have the luxury of such support and an innate innocent trust in their elders often sees them all too easily misled by the pseudo-friends and benefactors who rarely have little other than their own self-interest at heart…

Be it the gang leader’s conniving mentorship of the newly recruited 7 year old street-kid; or the shopkeeper who’d rather employ the inexpensive services of a 11 year old school drop-out; or the wealthy family who’ll proudly speak of how infinitely better their 9 year old servant’s life is since they ‘rescued‘ him or her from an impoverished rural existence; or the brothel owner who’s happily exploiting the 13 year old apprentice pimp with devious promises of future greatness; or any of the countless similar scenarios we face on a daily basis, just-one‘s small team of dedicated local staff often face the frustratingly difficult task of trying to counter any such misinformation with truths that the children themselves are too young to truly understand and, perhaps even more bizarrely, too trusting to believe…

A hasty decision which 13 year old Bijay will hopefully live to regret...

I’m not going to suggest that the approximately 5-inch-square upper-back tattoo pictured above is a good illustration by any means, but perhaps it will serve another purpose here and illustrate the somewhat abstract and obscure point I think I’m trying to make here… Sadly, this is only one of the ten tattoos which 13 year old Bijay has had etched on his arms, legs and back during his year-long ‘pimpternship’ at the Kathmandu brothel which he currently regards as home. Although much of his innocence is already long lost, just-one still recognises the potential he has to be whatever he chooses to be in life. Unfortunately, with almost 24/7 contact and a cruel willingness to encourage his childish longing for adulthood, his current colleagues hold far greater influence over this young boy’s future than we do and are heartlessly exploiting their strangle-like power of youthful kudos in leading him towards a much darker and more uncertain future…

We are, if nothing more, persistently stubborn at just-one and don’t easily give up a fight. Sure, the sad reality of the situation here amidst the chaos of Kathmandu sees us occasionally losing out and failing to help one or other of the children whom we strive to work for, but it’s early days yet in our contact with Bijay and we’re relatively confident that we’ve still got a decent chance of making a positive impact on his future. The impressive transformation we’ve witnessed Surya Limbu (the subject of my previous blog post, who has been drug free for over a month now and is currently trying to decide whether he wants to be a teacher or a DJ… ;o) go through, certainly boosts this confidence, as do the numerous stories (that I’ll make time to share some day soon…) of other children we’ve shared success with to date. Here’s hoping that some day in the not too distant future I’ll also have the pleasure of writing that we’ve managed to get through to Bijay and that he’s safe and well having finally accepted our offer of help… Fingers crossed, eh?

Well, the monsoon downpour that prompted this unplanned entry (always best to try being productive when stuck in the office – even if it is after dark ;o) has subsided at last and leaves me free to splash home through puddled streets outside – a journey which I’ll happily take  momentarily… Just not before expressing my most sincere thanks to every single one of our kind supporters – without whose generous assistance just-one‘s work here in Nepal would, quite simply, not be possible! I’m obviously more than slightly biased but would, nonetheless, contend that such valued support is something which each of our donors (little and large alike) can be rightly proud of. Go on – be proud… and tell a few friends while you’re at it about this small, no-frills organisation you support in Kathmandu who would really appreciate their support too!

5 Responses to “A lot of inking, without much thinking…”

• claire louise
  July 2nd, 2010 03:36
  1

  and we are proud of the no-frills organisation that we support in Kathmandu! so a ‘Thank You’ to all the team for the work you all do.
  lovely that you got time to post a new blog, so nice to hear stories of the work just-one does.

• Rato
  July 19th, 2010 15:28
  2

  Declan! you are a super-star and amazing writer! Thanks so much for sharing the successes, the struggles and the bloody reality!!!! Take care! See you soon!

• Rita cuzz
  September 6th, 2010 19:48
  3

  Thanks Deccie for taking the time after a long day to write – keep it coming at us.

• Declan
  September 6th, 2010 20:41
  4

  Wow – ’tis a long time since I’ve been called Deccie… Anyway, cheers cuzz! Sometimes, the end of a long day is the only chance I get to gather enough coherent thoughts to pull together something worthy of posting! There’s another one on the way soon – maybe even this evening…. Surya’s still making great progress and will almost certainly be returning to live with his family before the end of the year. Sadly, Bijay (the inked-up 13 year old from my last post who’s been with us and gone a couple of times since I wrote) is still struggling to make the right decisions for his future… We’re still hopeful though that it’s just a matter of time and have our fingers crossed that nothing untoward happens to him in the meantime.

• johan van daele
  September 11th, 2011 20:25
  5

  Congratulations with your amazing day and night efforts. I hope to meet you this winter and to contribute with all I can give.

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