The drama unfolds: a young child, afflicted by typhoid, is taken to a quack whose wrong treatment of the disease causes the child to lose the power of mobility in both his legs. His dreams of a normal childhood, shattered before he has come of age to comprehend it, receive a further blow when he is refused admission to a school on account of being physically disabled.

Deprived and disheartened, the youngster, Ibrahim, has no option but to turn to begging for a living, quite literally on all fours.

Ibrahim's story may sound like a Dickensian invention, but unfortunately, the tragic tale is all too true.

"I was too small to remember things clearly, but I can still recall the incredible pain that the quack's supposed typhoid medicine gave me. I was screaming as the burning sensation took over both my legs, and soon after, I found they became floppy. I could not stand on them," describes Ibrahim, now a young man in his early twenties.

When the Bangabandhu Government School turned him away because of his handicap, his impoverished parents scraped together enough money to hire a teacher who would come to their house, but the school's rejection had destroyed his faith in learning. "I was so angry, I decided that if I could not study in a school like other children, I would not study at all," he said.

Nowadays, Ibrahim works with other disabled street children to help ensure that what the unjust treatment he received is not repeated with other children like him.

Through an advocacy group organised by the Centre for Services and Information on Disability (CSID), he works with peers to script and act out plays that educate people about the rights and concerns of children with disability. Following the performance, the children lead a discussion with the audience to see whether their message has come across.

Contact with the NGO has changed his life, according to Ibrahim.

CSID bought him a wheelchair and his leadership qualities earned him a steady job as their official liaison with the advocacy group. He works at the CSID office as a counselor to disabled working children, and earns Tk 5,000 a month. "Now, I go to deposit cheques to the bank in front of which I once used to beg," Ibrahim proudly stated.

Rubel, another member of the street theatre group, agrees that working with CSID has helped him rise above the dire circumstances that encumber his daily life.

Financial difficulties had forced him to drop out of school and work in a rickshaw workshop with his father, before CSID gave him support to open a small tea stall. Now that the family has a steady source of income, Rubel is able to go to school, where he is now a student of class eight.

He even went to the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York, with five other children of various nationalities, to speak at a convention on behalf of disabled children from poor families from around the world. His fondest memory is of the moment when he learnt that he was only the third person ever to deliver a speech in Bengali at the UN.

However, even after the media publicity that embraced him after his New York trip, his troubles did not end. His friends and neighbours continued to harass him for being lame. Rubel's disability prevents the shy young man from participating in games and sports with the same vigour as other children have, and consequently he is often subjected to cruel taunts and jokes.

"Before I joined the CSID theatre troupe, I used to feel very lonely because of my handicap. I was always very conscious of the fact that I was not like the other children around me...I could not do everything they did. But now I have come to know a lot of children with similar woes, and we work to support each other," Rubel said.

"When children report to us that they are being teased or tortured because they are handicapped, we go to their schools or the slums where they live and put on a play that shows how difficult our lives are, so that people will perhaps be kinder to that child and all other disabled kids there," said Ibrahim.

The plays have no formal script. The children meet up and assign dialogues and roles in a rehearsal before the performance.

When asked whether this did not sometimes lead to people forgetting their lines, Rubel replied poignantly, "These are the stories of our own lives that we are acting out, how can we forget anything?"