He waits in hope while mending soles

By Isuri Kaviratne, Pic by M.A. Pushpa Kumara.

His hands move fast and skillfully with the hammer and nails. Thirteen year old Lahiru Sampath and his mother sit in a makeshift cobbler shop close to the Nittambuwa clocktower surrounded by footwear that he and his mother have to repair. Lahiru, a shy boy, hasn’t been as lucky as most children. He was deprived of going to school at the age of nine and when he finally got the opportunity once again it was to a school for children with special abilities.

Lahiru in the makeshift shop.

While he was studying in grade 4 his mother had taken him out and put him in a pirivena before she went abroad. Life was miserable there he said. The lokuhamuduruwo used to tie him to a tree and beat him several times.

“When I returned after one year I found to my horror he had wounds and scratches all over his chest and he wept and said that he could no longer stay there,” Nayana Sudarshini, Lahiru’s mother said. The lokuhamuduruwo had refused to give her the boy’s birth certificate and leaving certificate from the pirivena she said.

Deprived of a birth certificate and leaving certificate Lahiru’s mother found it impossible to get her son admitted to another school, especially because he hadn’t attended school for one year. Eventually a school for children with special abilities had accepted Lahiru but he does not wish to study there.

Nayana said the church in her area that runs a school had also said they couldn’t take in Lahiru as they already had too many students to manage. She also said they were finding it difficult financially as her husband had dserted her and did not support them in anyway. The mother who hasn’t lost hope said she had written to the area Education Office about Lahiru’s situation and was awaiting a reply. Till then Lahiru will continue under the clock tower helping his mother eke out a living.

Robbed of an education

G.K. Sarath, who lives with his friend Lahiru also faced a similar situation when he was taken out of school by his uncle to help him in his masonry work. “I was living with my grandmother and uncle. They used to scold me and beat me saying I was not theirs and to go back to where I came from”, Sarath said. He added that he could not remember his father as he had passed away when he was young and his mother had left home to marry again.

Sarath (14) was a Grade 8 student of Urapola Vidyalaya in Nittambuwa. He had first gone to Yatawaka Primary School and later to Urapola Vidyalaya. He said his friends and even teachers helped him financially with books and other necessary items.
Since he was being ill treated at home Sarath came to live with Lahiru who had been his friend at the Yatawaka primary school.

“I have a younger sister who lives with another uncle in Ambepussa. “They love her and take care of her. But they used to beat me whenever I went to stay with them,” Sarath said resentfully. Though he would like to visit his younger sister often, Sarath said he doesn’t get the opportunity as his grandmother and uncle, don’t inform him when they visit Ambepussa. “I can’t go there alone as it is a long way off and I don’t know how to get there on my own.

I have another aunt living with my grandmother and she comes and takes me whenever she goes to Ambepussa. She loves me but she cannot stop my uncle and grandmother beating me”. This young boy says he wants to be a doctor one day and look after his sister too.

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