Teaching English to the children of the sex workers was not going to be easy as they varied in age & abilities.
My first lesson with them was to see how much English they knew so I decided to bring whatever I could find in my hotel room to discuss- teabags, coffee & sugar sachets.
I was amazed when these children had never seen them before especially the dried milk powder.
They laughed at the chopsticks I borrowed from the Chinese restaurant & were fascinated at the different currencies I was able to show them from Australia, USA & UK.
They kept asking me questions about my life.
Where I grew up, my origins & where I was living now.
When I told them about Mithra’s background & how his parents had to flee, they had never heard of Hitler.
When I explained how Hitler dreamt of a world where every one was blonde haired & blue eyed they so innocently asked “why?”
At the end of my 2 hr class they all started to sing to me in chorus with the lead singer starting off.
They were such a happy lot.
All of them knew they wanted a better life than they had now so all were attending formal school & coming to our evening program for further education.
This program that VITAL funds offers protection & education to the children in the evenings when their mothers turn the children out onto the streets whilst they work.
In the 16 years this program had been running, not one daughter of a sex worker had followed in her mother’s footsteps.
Working with the community in this area, the local school has offered the use of two classrooms.
Any space available is grabbed such as the balcony & the store room.
The library also allows us to teach in there too.
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