"I collect rubbish every day and sell it to earn some money," says Abdur Rehman.
"My family expects me to contribute if I am to get a meal at home. If I don't collect rubbish, how else can I make money?"
Although he is only 10, Abdur Rehman, from Kissan Colony in Pakistan, has learned to work hard if he is to get three meals a day. His mother died when he was a year old. His father remarried and moved to another town, severing all contacts with his family. Abdur has to look out for himself with little help from his relatives.
In Kissan Colony, most people work in the fields during the cotton picking season but once the season is over, it is very hard to earn a day's living. Men travel to the nearest urban areas looking for odd jobs on daily wages, while women and children forage through rubbish and collect what they can to make some money.
There is no public school in the village and the families are too poor to afford fees and the expense of getting children to the nearest school.
That is why, in 2012, Unicef set up a project to provide education to all children in major cotton picking districts in Pakistan. In partnership with local authorities and businesses, it established 80 centres in the Bahawalpur district now benefitting nearly 3000 children like Abdur.
Students are given free bags, books and stationery as an incentive to attend school and teachers are chosen from the community and given training, particularly in how to provide discipline without resorting to violence.
Abdur now attends school regularly. His teacher Ishrat said: "If it was not for these educational services being provided by Unicef, many of these children would have been deprived of their right to education."
Abdur added: "I had to fight my way to school because my family thought it was a waste of time, but now they don't stop me. I go to school in the morning and collect rubbish in the afternoon."
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