A Sense Of Belonging

Introduction
Through a ‘sense of belonging’ we incline to find the meaning of our lives. The desire for gratitude is the utmost human emotional need. Belonging can be described in many different ways; it takes on many different meanings for different people in different environments. Belonging means recognition and it starts with self-recognition of oneself. It necessitates every human just like the human body necessitates for food, shelter and clothes. Some find belonging in a church or a mosque i.e. nonphysical belonging, some with friends, some with family, and some even on shared media.
The interest in this topic grew from personal experience of shifting into different home environments in past six years. From these experiences, two

street children. Talking about the phenomenon of street children, it cannot be looked at in isolation, as it has other socioeconomic factors attached to it. It includes the driving factors behind the phenomenon at first place then social welfare and housing policies. According to an inter-NGO program on street children and youth, a street child is "any girl or boy who has not reached adulthood, for whom the street (in the widest sense of the word, including unoccupied dwellings, wasteland, etc.) has become his or her habitual abode and/or source of livelihood, and who is inadequately protected, directed, and supervised by responsible adults." Then there is further categorization of those children, however they might not all be homeless and

The exploration however, is to discover the living values, spaces, environments and life aspects these children associate with. These children have no home but the streets, and no domestic sustenance. They move from place to place, in search of shelter. Looking at this category in the context of Karachi, they usually inhabit places like parks, shrines and railway stations.
Karachi being the pivot of business and trade induces quite a number of people to migrate from rural areas to the city, roughly estimated to be growing at the rate of 5% annually. Its population has said to be doubled in past fifteen years. Thus the city contains an overwhelming population of street children (estimated to be above 12,000) .
Engagements with these children, engendered the realization that they are fairly unsuccessful in establishing ties, and are unfamiliar with the terms ‘bonding, home, family, and connections.’ The research, helped to dig up on facts of street life and how these children roam around the city being strangers to their own surroundings. Hence, these realizations throughout my experience led the research to explore about what exactly constitutes a feeling of belonging for a street