The magazine of the art-form of the photo-essay
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September 2013 issue
by Filippo Zambon
In the fall 2010 I worked on a photo-documentary about the daily life of the street children of Kathmandu, Nepal.
Those children allowed me to follow them during their peregrinations around the city. I followed them during the day
as they worked collecting cardboard in the dirty and busy streets of Kathmandu. I photographed their struggles, their
addictions and the poverty that they face everyday. But mostly, this is a story of solidarity and brotherhood. The work
is my homage to those children and their freedom.
The centre of Kathmandu is a magnificent labyrinth of narrow streets, squares and temples. In this place, called
Basantapur, I met for the first time the people of APC Nepal (Association for the protection of the children). APC
Nepal runs several projects; one of those is the Kalimati night shelter. Kalimati is a small place, situated in the very
heart of Basantapur, near the beautiful Durbar square. In Kalimati there are two rooms, a toilet, television, carpets
and a small kitchen. The door is always open; night and day. Kalimati is not an orphanage. The children are not
forced to stay there; they can come and leave whenever they want. This has been the home for many indomitable
kids. The ones who can't tolerate the strict rules of the institutions come here to spend the night or to eat and to
meet other kids. Other NGOs criticize the way Kalimati works. They think that this place has been just helping the
kids to survive in the street without pushing them to find another way of living. Many of the street children stay in
Basantapur; the tourists are here. They can beg for a few rupees from the tourists and collect cardboard from the
many downtown shops. Easy money. The children who live in the centre come often to Kalimati. They can rest here,
use the toilet, watch television and feel safe. Most of them have nowhere else to go. Kalimati has become their home
and the people working here are their family. In Kalimati there is only one rule: no glue. Many kids hide their glue
tubes around the city before coming here because they know that they will be checked. APC offers the children two
meals a day, emergency aid and clothes. Most of the children I met and photographed in Kathmandu are regular
users of Kalimati.
APC Nepal: Donate / find out more, here
A group of children play in the streets of Kathmandu in front of a small soup kitchen
for orphans. This place is run by a little Nepali Christian association and is open only
on fridays.
Early in the morning the kids play on the stairs of one of the temples in the centre of
Kathmandu (Basantapur). Most of them have spent the night out.
The bank side of the Bagmati River is the children's favorite place to sniff glue. Far
from the eyes of the workers of Kalimati, the kids spend part of the day getting high.
Rajas shows the tattoos with his name and the self inflicted scars on his arms. He is
one of the regulars of Kalimati and one of the oldest still using the facility.
The kids play and pose for the camera in one of the main street of Basantapur.
Alex and his teenager friends spend most of their day sniffing glue on the sidewalk of one busy street in Kathmandu.
Suroz, Bikas and Diros collect cardboard on the streets of Kathmandu. Selling
cardboard to the many recycling centers in town is the only chance they have to get
money. The few rupees they earn are usually spent on glue, cigarettes and sweets. In
two hours of work they are able to get 100 rupees (around one euro), enough to buy 2
tubes of glue (the normal price for the glue is 35 rupees but the shop keepers sell it to
kids at a higher price) Often much of the cardboard they find comes from the empty
packaging of the glue that they sniff.
Suroz rests on one of the sacks used to collect cardboards.
Kisna lights up a cigarette in front of his friend Dipes. Smoking and sniffing glue are
normal habits even between the younger street children.
Cancha. The youngest of the children living on the streets of Basantapur.
Bipindra performs a barefoot somersault for his friends in front of Amako Hotel a soup
kitchen situated in the centre of Kathmandu (Basantapur).
Inside Kalimati. One of the kids rests in the facility of the night shelter.
Kids eat in Amako Hotel a small soup kitchen/restaurant in Basantapur. The owner of
Amako Hotel gets paid (a few rupees per meal) by the French/Nepali organization
that also runs Kalimati. Normal customers started to avoid the restaurant after the
owner started allowing street children inside.
Bipindra, Diros, Suroz and Bikas rest after working collecting the cardboard. Diros
has the empty sack used to collect the carboard. Bipindra, the first on the left, is
sniffing glue.
Early in the morning, one of the kids of Kalimati sleeps on the warm wooden platform
of one of the temples in Durbar Square (main square of Basantapur, the centre of
Kathmandu)
