As I travel around the world, I see so much poverty that it can become routine, a kaleidoscope of suffering always spinning in the background. But when I stop for a second and talk to these children, the beggars and hustlers and vendors on the streets who approach you for change or try and sell you a bracelet or bubblegum, I see their big, eager smiles, the glint of hope that hasn’t been burned out of their eyes quite yet. And when I chat with them you realize they’re just as funny, imaginative, and bursting with energy as our children here in the United States.
So I’ve compiled a few photos of poor street children from my recent stint living in Cambodia and the Philippines, two of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia. This is just a very small sample of the children I’ve encountered and happened to shoot photos of. Every time I do so I ask permission, and/or give some money or food to them. Most of the time they’re thrilled, and want to look at their own photo in my phone or camera. I focus on helping children because they haven’t done anything to warrant their circumstances - they're not guilty of making bad choices. Instead, they’re born into the curse of poverty, and can’t fight for themselves.
So I’ve compiled a few photos of poor street children from my recent stint living in Cambodia and the Philippines, two of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia. This is just a very small sample of the children I’ve encountered and happened to shoot photos of. Every time I do so I ask permission, and/or give some money or food to them. Most of the time they’re thrilled, and want to look at their own photo in my phone or camera. I focus on helping children because they haven’t done anything to warrant their circumstances - they're not guilty of making bad choices. Instead, they’re born into the curse of poverty, and can’t fight for themselves.
There are far too many children in the world who eat like this - rooting through the trash to try and discover a few edible scraps that aren't too rotten, fighting off the rats and insects and sometimes, other people, for their supper.
In fact, more than 1 billion children are living in poverty, according to UNICEF. 1 in 5 children around the world don’t even have clean drinking water, and around 1 in 4, enough food to eat. An alarming number of children don’t get the proper immunizations and die of easily preventable diseases like malaria, measles, and diarrhea – the three biggest killers of children that end about 500,000 young lives each year.
The statistics go on and on, but if we only quantify child poverty by numbers and statistics, our perceptions tend to slip from compassion to calculation, and we start defining them as problems, not people. So let’s focus on a different statistic: one. The number one is the only way to define each of these children. Each as their own person, their own mind and spirit, just like you or me.
In fact, more than 1 billion children are living in poverty, according to UNICEF. 1 in 5 children around the world don’t even have clean drinking water, and around 1 in 4, enough food to eat. An alarming number of children don’t get the proper immunizations and die of easily preventable diseases like malaria, measles, and diarrhea – the three biggest killers of children that end about 500,000 young lives each year.
The statistics go on and on, but if we only quantify child poverty by numbers and statistics, our perceptions tend to slip from compassion to calculation, and we start defining them as problems, not people. So let’s focus on a different statistic: one. The number one is the only way to define each of these children. Each as their own person, their own mind and spirit, just like you or me.
90% of the children affected by food insecurity end up suffering the effects of malnourishment, on both their bodies and minds. So some of these kids look like they’re 8 years old and then I’m shocked to hear they are 13, or something similar. They are lucky if they get one meal a day, usually a ball of rice or some mango or enough scraps to fill themselves up with 1,000 calories or so, and a sit down dinner with utensils and plates might be a very rare and special event.
I try not to give out out money to street kids. Too often, they’re sent out by gangs or even their own parents. The kids are forced to walk the streets to sell things or beg all day and night, only to turn over the money. Handing over money to kids who are sent out by adults only perpetuates the cycle.
So I ask if they are hungry and offer to buy them some food. Usually they agree happily, and point out the closest food vendor on the street or corner store. But I even have to be careful buying food, as the kids will try to run game on me. Inside the store, they ask if they can buy these big cans of condensed milk formula. At first I thought they wanted it because it was so nourishing, but I found out that bring the cans of milk back to the store later on for a refund, walking away with the cash after all.
I try not to give out out money to street kids. Too often, they’re sent out by gangs or even their own parents. The kids are forced to walk the streets to sell things or beg all day and night, only to turn over the money. Handing over money to kids who are sent out by adults only perpetuates the cycle.
So I ask if they are hungry and offer to buy them some food. Usually they agree happily, and point out the closest food vendor on the street or corner store. But I even have to be careful buying food, as the kids will try to run game on me. Inside the store, they ask if they can buy these big cans of condensed milk formula. At first I thought they wanted it because it was so nourishing, but I found out that bring the cans of milk back to the store later on for a refund, walking away with the cash after all.
  |  When I go in a corner store or mart with these kids, I make sure they buy food that they’re actually going to eat. I usually tell them they can get one thing only, because if you buy more than one thing for one, all the rest want the same . The most popular choice is a big bowl of instant noodles, followed by ice cream. Kids all over the world love ice cream, no matter where they are. They always try to sneak a can of Coca Cola or Red Bull up onto the counter for me to pay, but I make them buy a big bottle watered or milk to drink, instead. |
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It goes without saying that these kids are homeless, sleeping in public parks, bus stop benches, or right on the concrete of the sidewalk. They have no blankets or pillows, only a piece of cardboard, a sweatshirt, or the curb to rest their head. They wash in the sprinklers at the park, in an unused hose at a store, or in putrid water from an irrigation line. They own one pair of clothes and bathe and make their toilet right on the street; there is no modesty in poverty.
The little things that you and I take for granted are unimaginable luxuries to these kids. These little street girls in in Phnom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia, were amazed to see their own reflection in a car mirror, and giggled embarrassingly at their own vanity when I snapped a photo of them.
In poor countries, there are no government programs to help; no social security, food stamps, welfare, free medical care, or anything else for the poor. So these kids don't get the simple vaccines and immunizations that our kids enjoy. They are rife with worms and malaria and infections.
They hope for the charity of NGOs, orphanages, schools, or community centers that receive foreign aid or are set up by great, caring individuals. But corruption is also rampant among international NGOs, and even the good ones can only help a few.
In poor countries, there are no government programs to help; no social security, food stamps, welfare, free medical care, or anything else for the poor. So these kids don't get the simple vaccines and immunizations that our kids enjoy. They are rife with worms and malaria and infections.
They hope for the charity of NGOs, orphanages, schools, or community centers that receive foreign aid or are set up by great, caring individuals. But corruption is also rampant among international NGOs, and even the good ones can only help a few.
 |  They live in the trash, some in communities that are built right on the city’s garbage dumps. There they walk barefoot, climbing piles of garbage and human waste, picking out metal or glass or things they can recycle for a few coins – or food to eat. Every year, tens of thousands of children around the world die in these dumps. |
Drug abuse is rampant. Too poor to buy proper drugs or alcohol, these kids starting sniffing glue, gasoline, paint thinner or other cheap toxic substances. It gives them a quick high and suppresses the hungry ache in their bellies, and is probably the only thing that gives them a break from the suffering in their lives. I see kids huffing rags or out of Baggies all the time, sometimes with their mothers doing it right next to them. Often times the kids are working the bar streets where tourists party, so they’ll drink the alcohol left in discarded beer cans. Eventually they graduate to Yabba, or ice, a cheap and deadly combination or meth, speed, and other horrible shit.
They’re also starving for affection from parental figures, as most of them are raising themselves or their parents are off working all day and night.
This little gangsta of love on the right is a homeless toddler who followed me about 4 blocks on my way walking to the riverfront to exercise, pestering me to pick him up and carried him the whole way. I thought we were looking for his mom but he brought me to the soda vendor because he wanted a drink. He then hung around through my workout and terrorized me afterward, whacking me on the head with a water bottle until I lifted him onto the jungle gyms repeatedly. I don't think you adopt kids in southeast Asia - they adopt you!
This little gangsta of love on the right is a homeless toddler who followed me about 4 blocks on my way walking to the riverfront to exercise, pestering me to pick him up and carried him the whole way. I thought we were looking for his mom but he brought me to the soda vendor because he wanted a drink. He then hung around through my workout and terrorized me afterward, whacking me on the head with a water bottle until I lifted him onto the jungle gyms repeatedly. I don't think you adopt kids in southeast Asia - they adopt you!
 | Too often, I see 6-year old children carrying around and raising their baby and toddler brothers and sisters, still expected to beg for money in traffic on the hot, polluted, and dangerous streets. If you happen to be up at 3am in any of southeast Asia's cities, you'll probably see more little street kids out hustling and working than you would at 3 in the afternoon. |
There is no shortage of schwag with these kids, as they try to emulate popular culture, or even their favorite hip hop fashions. These girls in the Philippines were doing their own impersonation of Tupac, complete with tongue rings (I scolded them and told them to take them out but of course they won’t) though they just looked like little kids again when I bought them ice creams.
They give each other nicknames like my little homie, Michael Jackson, in the Philippines and talk about “their style” when they see foreigner’s clothes and haircuts and glimpse the occasional YouTube video on someone else’s phone.
They give each other nicknames like my little homie, Michael Jackson, in the Philippines and talk about “their style” when they see foreigner’s clothes and haircuts and glimpse the occasional YouTube video on someone else’s phone.
 |  They wear whatever they can salvage from the trash or what they find discarded, often with hilarious, comical, or in the case of the little girl to the left, beautiful results. Little kids often don't have any clothes at all and just run around naked and dirty, and most kids go barefoot unless they're lucky enough to find a pair of old flip flops. |
 They’re amazing salespeople, striking up a conversation, pitching their product, handling objections, closing, and gaining commitment with the acumen of a 50-year old used car salesman. Whether they’re selling little hand woven bracelets or chewing gum, they’re real goal is to get a customer to buy something but also tip them generously, so they know how to look cute and make you laugh. I really think Fortune 500 companies from the U.S. should send their salespeople over to the streets of southeast Asia to observe how these kids do it. |  One consistent thing is their humor. Just because they are poor, these kids are no shrinking violets. Quite the opposite, they are bursting with personality and spirit. More often than not, they have me laughing like crazy at their wild antics and hilarity. They love it when you joke around with them, just like any youngsters. |
 |  These street kids are vulnerable to some really bad shit: violent gangs, sexual exploitation by adults who force or sell them in prostitution from young ages. So most of the time, the kids don’t walk around and beg or dig in the trash by themselves, but work the streets with other kids in little hungry packs. So when they one kid finds food or gets a donation from a tourist, they all can eat. There’s also safety in packs and frankly, being among other kids is more fun for them than being alone all day and night. |
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They are smart, yet they don’t go to school. Most of them haven’t spent even one day inside a classroom, but their school is the streets, and they are apt pupils. Quick witted, razor fast and perceptive, I encounter little kids all the time who speak three or four languages conversationally, just so they can try to engage foreign tourists and fill their bellies. In developing countries, even public schools aren’t free. You have to buy a uniform, schoolbooks, transportation, food at school, and bribe the teacher, who is paid miserable wages, to show up. It’s actually quite a costly affair, a luxury just for the rich and small middle class, so poor children are raised working the family job right alongside with adults – or in the streets.
Poor little girls, especially, are kept out of school and put to work, picking mangos in the field, farming rice in the hot sun, or helping out with domestic tasks. Whether out of necessity to help feed their families or out of greed by an exploitative adult, these kids are sent out in the most dangerous and unhealthy of conditions: to sell flowers in busy traffic, shoeless on the hot pavement, to pickpocket drunk foreigners, chew up razor blades and juggle fire for the tourists, and walk the streets late at night going through the trash for empty beer cans.
They even engage in scams, distracting a bar patron so another kid could steal his iPhone off the table, or sending a fall guy to get caught trying to steal a drunk tourist’s watch so others can rifle through his pocket.
They even engage in scams, distracting a bar patron so another kid could steal his iPhone off the table, or sending a fall guy to get caught trying to steal a drunk tourist’s watch so others can rifle through his pocket.
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Indigenous people get the raw deal, no matter where you go in the world. Whether these Ati children in the Philippines, Aborigines in Australia, or Native Americans in our own U.S.A., the most ancient cultures in the world are abused and thrown away like garbage. In southeast Asia, like many parts of the world, there is also extreme prejudice based on skin color. Darker skinned people are considered lower class because they have more indigenous blood and might be dark from the sun from doing manual labor outdoors. A beautiful woman is called ugly and teased because no man will ever want to marry her just because she has brown skin. Asia’s terrible obsession with skin tone is big business, as you can barely find a skin crème, after shave, or lotion that advertises skin-whitening benefits.
Once you treat them like any other kid – having fun and joking around but also laying down clear boundaries - I’ve found them to be incredibly polite, appreciative, and respectful. They want to eat, but they want to be your friend, too. Once I help them, they see me coming way down the street and run to say hi as if I was Santa Claus, high living and recounting the details of our meeting with surprising accuracy. Of course they want me to buy them food again, and of course I don't say "no." But they also want someone to look at them like human beings, not dismiss them as gutter trash. Just like any mischievous, fun-loving kid in the U.S., they think they’re little superstars, just waiting to be discovered.
I tend to agree with them.
-Norm :-)
I tend to agree with them.
-Norm :-)
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