Shelter-Based Community Libraries: In Search of Alternative Livelihoods for Pavement Dwellers in Dhaka City

Each night, around 20,000 peopleboth adults and childrenmake the streets of Dhaka (the capital city of Bangladesh) their home. Living amongst the noise, rubbish, and traffic, thousands of families walk down the streets of Dhaka, looking for a safe place to rest for just a few hours each night. Trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty, the pavement dwellers are amongst the most vulnerable people in Bangladesh. Pavement dwellers can be found in ferry landings, train stations, bus stations, market centers, religious shrines, parks, and on footpaths. There are very few organizations which are serving for them. CWW (Concern Worldwide) (one of the International Non-government Organizations) and DCC (Dhaka City Corporation) have jointly come forward to support 10,000 pavement dwellers through dedicated pavement dweller centres, providing them with the opportunity to make their own choices for a better future. It will also establish sustainable services for providing basic functional education for 900 children/youth and 400 adults, psychosocial counseling for 600 children and 150 adults, market-based vocational skills training for 450 children/youth and adults, entrepreneurial skills training for 400 children/youth, and life skills education for 800 children/youth. With a view to this, the project decided to set up libraries based on their shelter centres. The project realizes that as of today in Bangladesh, the poorest communities do not have access to a library. This damages educational outcomes for many. The author has been appointed as a library consultant in that project. It is an amazing experience that based on the demand of the pavement dwellers, the author had to collect the resources and different audio-visual aids. At the beginning, the author had to face tremendous challenges to get their attention because most of the children of the pavement dwellers did not feel interest to any attractive reading books or illustrative collections. They were very much fond of watching movie, cinema, drama, cartoon, Hindi film, action film, and so on. To attract them on library resources, the author has prepared and presented different video documentaries on how river erosion affected children encouraged to read and go to school, how children sex workers become curious to create reading habit which leads them to go to school. For motivating youth pavement dwellers achieving social skills on different professions (like barber, carpenter, shopkeeper, hawker, micro-investor, cooperatives, maid-labour, day-labour, rickshaw-puller, van-driver, etc.), short video documentaries have been made and presented on different IGAs (income generating activities). Thus, libraries have turned into integral part in the lives of the pavement dwellers. The basic aim of the paper is to share the ideas on how a considerable number of children pavement dwellers have been admitted in government and public schools during the last couple of years by the help of the library services. This will reveal how the youth pavement dwellers’ capacity has been increased through training and library services. It will also explain a good progress in enabling better access for pavement dwellers and their children to basic services in education, health and legal aid through library and information