More travel child players exhibit Azad Foundation’s exploitation and lies
PHOTO COURTESY: RASHID BALOCH
KARACHI: 18-year-old Naseer Ahmed knows what excellence feels like, carrying stood unapproachable on a lectern of a Street Child World Games in Brazil final year and carrying had his design of that impulse favourite by a world’s fastest male Usain Bolt.
But he also knows how tough it is to make ends accommodate earning Rs300 with a change that runs from 7am to 3pm. He also knows, as a solitary bread leader of his family, how infrequently operative from 7am compartment midnight feels usually to acquire Rs200 more. And he also knows how it feels to be exploited by non-government organisations (NGOs) who used his talent to their advantage.
“It all feels like a dream that, somewhere along a line, incited into a nightmare,” Naseer tells The Express Tribune. “Now a priority is to lay during this vessel emporium and make certain we don’t get held by a military when they raid. What do we tell people; that we went to Brazil and won a award there, we went to Norway and China to play football there yet have no awaiting of a destiny other than offered vessel here for a rest of my life?”
Pakistan’s Street Child World Cup heroes used, abused and forced to scratch a living
Naseer is another of a children to come brazen to plead a approach NGO Azad Foundation took advantage of a children. “In my heart, in my mind, we was personification for Pakistan,” he said. “Azad Foundation told us that it is for a country, yet small did we know that they were usually regulating us for their possess benefit. They betrothed us a secure destiny and a fast income if we achieved well. We did, yet here we am, dual years later, a jack-of-all-trades again.”
PHOTO COURTESY: RASHID BALOCH
Previously, members of a famous 2014 Street Child Football World Cup group — Raziq Mushtaq, Merh Ali Mustafa, Aurangzeb Baloch and Sameer Ahmed — and their manager Rashid Baloch, had suggested how a NGO done dull promises and exploited them.
More and some-more such children are now entrance brazen to pronounce opposite an organization that they explain usually uses them for their possess financial gains.
Naseer says he found out about Azad Foundation in 2015 and participated during a 2016 Brazil Street Child Games, notwithstanding not being a travel child in a initial place.
“Azad Foundation officials Itfan Maqbool and Naveed Hasan Khan used to come to a play drift where there were 300 to 400 children and would collect 3 or 4 kids,” he said. “They told us that they will give us jobs, they will compensate us to do something we desired doing [play football]. we don’t have a father so we didn’t have anyone to deliberate this offer with. we usually went with them.”
The betrothed income never done it to their pockets though. “They never gave me a singular penny and we left Azad Foundation 6 months after given we felt we was vagrant for what was my possess money.”
PHOTO COURTESY: RASHID BALOCH
Naseer went to Norway, France, China and a US with Azad Foundation, yet pronounced he and a other kids were always on a finish of a fusillade of abuses hurled during them by officials from a organisation.
Naseer was sanctified with healthy gait and was therefore asked to be a partial of a entertainment team, where he was lerned by central Haris Jadoon, who has no knowledge in sports training. Former contestant Naseem Hameed afterwards collaborated with a NGO after on yet usually met a boys once due to a last-minute inlet of her appointment.
“It was all unequivocally rushed,” pronounced Naseer. “We would stay during Azad Foundation offices and used to run during pointless grounds. we wish to play football, we know we have a talent for entertainment yet there are no coaches or comforts to pursue a career in athletics.”
Athletics is a perfectionist competition yet Naseer pronounced he was not even supposing adequate food after a prolonged day of training.
“They would keep giving us chana (chickpeas) yet zero estimable so it came as no warn that a travel children we saw in Brazil — who had indeed lived on a streets — were in improved figure than we were.”
PHOTO COURTESY: RASHID BALOCH
There are others, like 17-year-olds Muhammad Munawwar and Uzair Qadir, who suffered fates worse than Naseer; both removing harmed during a 2015 Norway Cup.
Munawwar, a former defender, now works as a jack-of-all-trades in a bid to acquire around Rs20,000 per month as he aims to repair his now cryptic knee.
“I live in Malir and my father is a workman during a shoe-lace bureau where he earns Rs10,000,” he said. “I desired personification football and that is because we went with Azad Foundation. we went to play with them in Norway, China, France and US, yet when we got harmed they never paid me any income to assistance me with my treatment. A sympathiser in Norway, where we got injured, gave me Rs10,000 for diagnosis yet Azad Foundation wouldn’t give me my pass behind if we didn’t give them that amount.”
Harsh existence has set in for these children. “Our knees are gone, aren’t they?” asks Munawwar. “We believed we were personification for Pakistan, we unequivocally did. They done us distortion too about being travel children, yet unequivocally what options did we have? The doctors contend a veins in Uzair’s knee are blocked now so his condition is even worse than mine.”
Munawwar, Naseer, Mehr and other players all accurate they never had a group alloy with them, with a conditions being so bad that they wouldn’t even have a pain-relief mist during their disposal.
Such harrowing tales of damaged lies, injustice and exploitation from Azad Foundation are now apropos some-more and some-more common place. The children, meanwhile, continue to wish they had never realised their dreams of one day personification for Pakistan.
Article source: https://tribune.com.pk/story/1403054/street-child-players-reveal-azad-foundations-exploitation-lies/