Pakistan is home to more out-of-school children than almost any country in the world. And there's...
As an architect, Sarah Adeel knows that space matters. And the spaces in which she saw so many low-income young people living seemed to shut them out from the world – and from their own childhoods.
With a few crayons and a ream of paper, she moved them to a new place – one where they were in control.
She founded the self-sustaining organization Lettucebee Kids to foster a safe space for street children to learn and grow.
Adeel and a few volunteers meet with a group of about a dozen kids for art therapy every week to create drawings which the children can sell so they do not have to beg. An exhibition of their artwork opened at one of Islamabad's finest hotels on World Street Children Day.
While Adeel realizes that drawing and music aren't a replacement for formal education, she says the art the children create and sell gives LettuceBee Kids participants something they were lacking: a sense of pride in their work and in themselves.
