Arbaaz: A Ten-Year-Old Carrying the Weight of an Entire Family
Every night, when the city quiets and families retreat into warm homes, a small boy takes his place in the darkness.
Every night, when the city quiets and families retreat into warm homes, a small boy takes his place in the darkness.
His name is Arbaaz.
He is only ten years old.
He does not carry schoolbooks.
He carries a shoe-shine box.
And he does not sit outside because he wants to —
He sits there because if he doesn’t, his family does not eat.
When asked if he goes to school, Arbaaz answers softly: “No.”
Not because he doesn’t want to learn.
But because someone must be strong for his family.
“If I go to school, what will my mom and dad eat?”
His father is severely ill. He suffers from mental illness so advanced that he can no longer even perform wudu (ablution) — the most basic act of worship. His mother stays at home to care for him. Arbaaz has younger siblings who are too small to work.
So the responsibility fell on the smallest shoulders.
“If my father worked, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
The family borrowed 250,000 Afghanis to try to save their father. They went again and again for treatment — not once, not twice — because mental illness does not heal in a single visit. The debt remains. The illness remains. And now only Arbaaz stands between hunger and survival.
Every night he waits — in places where people barely pass — trusting that Allah will send him someone.
“It’s fine,” he says.
“I put my trust in my Lord.”
On the night we met him, he had earned nothing.
Not a single customer.
“You are my first customer,” he said quietly.
This ten-year-old child — who should be asleep, safe, dreaming of school — was sitting alone in the darkness waiting for mercy to arrive.
When given $20, he did not smile with excitement.
He simply said:
“It’s enough.”
Enough to eat.
Enough to survive.
Enough to face another night.
Why Arbaaz Needs You
Arbaaz is not asking for toys.
He is not asking for comfort.
He is asking — without words — for his family to live with dignity.
Your support can:
• Provide monthly food support
• And most importantly — send Arbaaz back to school, where he belongs
No child should have to choose between education and hunger.
No child should carry the burden of an entire household.
And no child should have to sit alone in the dark praying for a customer to pass by.
Let us be the answer to Arbaaz’s dua.
Let us give him back his childhood.
Let us replace his shoeshine box with schoolbooks.
Let us turn his nights of waiting into days of learning.
Please donate today — and be the reason Arbaaz’s family survives.
Because behind that small shoeshine box is not just a boy
.
Taymor
- $500 USD,
- 4 months ago
Anonymous
- $100.00 USD,
- 4 months ago
Anonymous
- $51.80 USD,
- 4 months ago
Anonymous
- $51.80 USD,
- 5 months ago
Anonymous
- $31.20 USD,
- 5 months ago
Anonymous
- $100.00 USD,
- 5 months ago
Anonymous
- $257.80 USD,
- 5 months ago
Anonymous
- $210.00 USD,
- 5 months ago
Anonymous
- $80.64 USD,
- 5 months ago
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Where this campaign stands today
Raised, deployed, and items delivered are sourced from the same ledger_entries table our finance team reconciles against. The numbers below match the admin transparency view exactly.
Updated live from the public ledger.
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