Consolidated analysis
This section has demonstrated that street children of Dhaka
city have a range of future financial needs that need to be met, which is of
three kinds: life-cycle, emergencies and opportunities.
However, as pointed by Conticini (2004), «street
children (of Dhaka city) do not save very regularly and tend to spend all their
income quickly, living on a day-by-day basis». Our findings agree
with this statement, but do transfer the responsibility of such
«day-by-day» behaviour from the child to the street life hardship.
Indeed, we have demonstrated that it was the insecurity in the street and the
lack of proper ways to save money in the informal financial market that lead
street children to enter into a vicious circle and to misuse their money
quickly. This behaviour does not allow them to meet their future expenditures
and hence increases their vulnerability. Consequently, street children do need
savings to protect their money and to break the vicious circle in which they
have entered.
These findings are coherent with Judith Ennew observations
(having a long lifetime working experience with street children all around the
world), who states that street children have two ways to keep their money safe.
The first is to look for some places in which to store it:
«In Colombo, children sleep on the street with their money in
their mouths». She adds that the second option is to spend all
the money fast, often sharing with friends who will reciprocate when they in
turn are in funds (...). This rapid spending of money gives the appearance of
not wishing for anything other than short-term pleasure, but it really
illustrates that there are practical obstacles to saving or making long-term
plans» (Ennew, 2000 : 137-138).
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