Consolidated analysis
Our exploration in Dhaka city made us discover how street
children needed credit in order to start or to sustain their own or their
families' income generating activities.
Regarding their own income generating activities, these were
of two types:
Seasonal and temporary businesses, whenever they get an opportunity to increase
their income or whenever they loose their jobs;
Long-term businesses, because they want to be self-employed.
Regarding their families' businesses, children who had their
families in Dhaka city did support them by giving them a credit in order to
start an income generating activity, and were generally working with them
after.
These findings are consistent with some observations worldwide
regarding street working children, who point out at how those children have
entrepreneurial skills but dot get access to credit.
However, they use some credit services, provided by employers
(advances, with no interest), or buying goods on credit (with interest) and
neighbours/known people. Therefore, urban children do use mainly credit from
informal market. These credits are generally claimed to be needed for both
consumption and for business (Wilson and Hall, 2006), but resort to it when
income flows and savings were inadequate to meet their financial needs
(Iglebaeck and al, 2005).
Our findings from Padakhep did not confirm the fact that
children needed credit for consumption, as those children knew that, to get a
loan, one condition was to invest it in an income generating activity and were
generally meeting their expenditures needs through a management of their income
and their savings. However, other experiences worldwide show that street
children may need credit for consumption purposes.
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