Room to Stretch by Sandie Walton-Ellery on The SoH Fun Days in April 2010

I am an Australian who lives in Dhaka. One of the most noticeable contrasts between the place I grew up and the city I now reside in is the lack of space. Bangladesh is the most densely populated country in the world; Australia is one of the least. I notice this every time I step outside my front gate; the roads are crowded, the markets are crowded, the footpaths are crowded, the parks are crowded, and, if you try to drive out of Dhaka to the rural areas, the crush and clamour of the urban sprawl goes on and on and on.

Not only is Bangladesh the most densely populated country in the world, but Dhaka is the most densely populated city in the world. Right now, the UN estimates the population to be around 10 million people, but other estimates are sometimes much higher due to the difficulty of obtaining this figure and the continual migration into Dhaka from rural areas as people look for a better life and attempt to escape hardships such as seasonal unemployment and vulnerability to natural disasters.

The population density of Dhaka is around 40,000 people per square kilometre; to put this into perspective if the urban area of New York was this densely populated it would be able to hold the entire population of the USA and Mexico. If this is not dramatic enough, the population density of Dhaka’s slums is even more incredible to imagine; some estimates are that it is as high as 1,000,000 people per square kilometre. At this density the population of the entire world would fit into the Tokyo-Yokohama urban area, leaving 10 percent of the land for open space. It makes my head spin.

This is the environment that the children who attend the School of Hope live with every day. No room to kick a football, no room to run at full speed, room to stretch. This is why the fun day on the large green field of the International School of Dhaka (ISD) is such a treat. For one day the children get to play the kinds of games most children in western countries take for granted. They get to run, to slide, to get wet, to tumble on the grass, to shout, to be uninhibited.

This year the fun days were held on the 16^th and 17^th of April 2010. It is the second year that ISD has kindly invited the School of Hope to use its facilities, ensuring the equipment is set up on the field, arranging volunteer helpers and providing the children with a fantastic lunch. I don’t think we can fully comprehend what these kinds of opportunities mean to the children, but we can see the sheer joy on their faces. A huge thank you to everyone at ISD, we look forward to many more fun days!