World Street Children News :: Kenya Streetkid News

little brother - street children
From: liveinslums
Short documentary about street children in Kenya.

Kenya: Street Children’s Lobby Accuses Police
The Nation (Nairobi)

9 November 2007
Posted to the web 8 November 2007

David Macharia
Nairobi

Police were on Thursday accused of failing to take action on those who sell glue to street children.

Officials of Ex-Street Children Community Based Organisation Joshua Lubale (chairman), Benson Juma Akumu (organising secretary) and Peter Njenga (secretary) said sniffing of glue by street children was widespread in Eldoret.

The organisation was founded by former street boys in the town.

The officials said in Eldoret that it was easy to pick out the shops and individuals who sold glue to the children.

Most of the children, they said, were willing to reveal their source of the substance.

The Children’s Act 2001 protects young ones from use of hallucinogens, narcotic and psychotropic drugs or from being involved in their production, trafficking or distribution.

The officials also accused quacks who had invaded charitable organisations, and especially children’s homes, saying they were using them for monetary gain.

They called on those willing to give donations to liaise with the district children’s officers to be shown the genuine homes.

Food and clothing

They said the quacks were using food and clothing donations to attract children to the streets from recognised rehabilitation centres particularly in Eldoret.

Kenya: Writer Who is Changing Lives of Street Children
The Nation (Nairobi)

17 October 2007
Posted to the web 16 October 2007

Bob Odalo
Nairobi

"When I was in the streets, I used to be a drug seller. I sold drugs but I stopped, before I joined the vocational training. I was a deadly thief..but now, I am changed," said Eric 17.

"I did not know how to communicate without hurting anyone."

Sarah, also 17, said: "In the streets, I had a difficult time, I lacked food, protection and I used to sleep there. I also used drugs like marijuana, but now, I am feeling good. I feel rehabilitated with my income as a hairdresser.

"I support my family and I also want to help change the lives of other girls currently living in the streets."

Share of struggles

Ten years ago, a young American undergraduate journalist, Ms Farah Stockman, then 22, joined forces with two veteran teachers from the Kenya Adult Education office in Machakos to find a solution to the problem of street children in the town.

The result was the establishment of Jitegemee (Kiswahili for help yourself), Centre to assists children and destitute youths obtain primary, secondary and vocational education.

Speaking about the initiative today, Ms Stockman says it has seen its share of struggles and challenges.

"The original group of 30 children has grown into secondary school students, carpenters, welders, tailors and hairdressers.

Machakos Town too has changed a great deal. However, the number of children in the streets has reduced drastically.

Today, the centre caters for more than 200 former street boys and girls.

Ms Stockman is back in the US, working as a writer with the Boston Globe in Washington DC.

But despite being two worlds apart, this has not stopped her from running the project she founded.

Recently, as Jitegemee was celebrating its 10th anniversary, Ms Stockman found time off her busy schedule to fly back to Kenya to celebrate with the centre’s fraternity.

She came with her parents and close relatives to share the happiness of the moment.

When she first visited Kenya, she was a student at Harvard in the US.

"In 1994, I was a bit restless at school. I was tired to learning everything from books, and I wanted to go out and see the world for myself. So I enrolled in a study abroad programme that took me to the hills of Machakos. It was called Friends World," Ms Stockman recalled.

Shut down shortly

She said the programme shut down shortly after, but the experience changed her life.

"I really fell in love with Kenya, I learned Swahili.

"I also developed an interest in street children in Machakos and Nairobi," she said.

Ms Stockman said that while in the US, she had volunteered to teach children in a public housing project, so she knew how to work with children.

"But the street children really interested me. They seemed so eager to learn, and it seemed like such a small amount of money and time could help them. So I decided to come back to Kenya after I graduated from college to work with the them," she said.

In 1996, Farah got a fellowship from the Stride Rite Foundation (a famous shoe-company) that helped her to come back and teach in Machakos for two years.

"When I arrived in Machakos, I originally had planned to set up my own programme. But I quickly realised that there was already an informal classroom in town under the Adult Education office, so I asked them if I could join their efforts as a volunteer, and they agreed."

"I am sure that were it not for them, my own efforts would not have succeeded," she quipped.

It was not smooth sailing for Ms Stockman as she embarked on trying to assist disadvantaged children far away from her home.

"I was very young when I went to live in Kenya, just 22 years old. The first few months were marked by loneliness, even though everyone in Machakos was so friendly."

"When I moved into my first house in Machakos, I didn’t even know basic things like how to light the cooking stove, or what to do when there was suddenly no water in the town," she adds.

Ms Stockman confesses that she had little experience in running an organisation apart from the volunteer work that she did in college.

One thing that she admired from her pupils was that they never asked her for money.

Rwanda genocide court

When her fellowship ended, Ms Stockman went to Nairobi to take up a job as a freelance journalist with Reuters.

She later went to live in Arusha, Tanzania, where she worked as a journalist covering the Rwanda genocide court.

Years later, when she moved back to the US to work for the Boston Globe, it became clear that she needed to hire a director and register formally with the Kenyan Government if her project was to succeed.

As she globe trots, covering events affecting her country, Ms Stockman at times finds herself bursting into laughter in the company of colleagues as some memorable incidents during her stay in Machakos flash back.

Ms Stockman lives in the US and she does not interact with the children as she used to. Her time, she says, is spent managing a board of directors in America that hopes to raise $50,000 (about Sh4 million) this year and overseeing the programme.

So what does the future hold for her and Jitegemee?

Ms Stockman says she plans to launch a programme specifically for sponsored secondary school students so that they could have attachments in the fields of medicine, law and business and begin to think more clearly about their lives after graduation.

At least a meal

Keeping Ms Stockman’s dream alive in Kenya is the programme director, Mr Mike Kimeu.

Mr Kimeu said today the programme has over 20 students in secondary schools spread across Machakos and more than 70 pupils attending primary schools.

The children are not housed at Jitegemee but during school days, they are assured of at least a meal at the centre.

Last year’s KCPE candidate Peter Muasya, who was plucked from the streets about five years ago, was the toast of the centre after he emerged the top candidate in the district with 420 points. This saw him placed among the top 50 candidates nationally.

Kimeu said that recently, mobile phone provider Safaricom, gave them a Sh800,000 assistance.

Step up sensitization on the plight of street children, urges VP

Written By:VPPS   , Posted: Mon, Oct 01, 2007

Caption: Vice President Awori is congratulated by the Permanent Secretary, Public Service Reform and Development Secretariat, Joyce Nyamwea, after officially opening a three-day workshop on National Strategy for Rehabilitation of Street families.

Vice President Moody Awori has appealed for greater public awareness about the plight of street children.

He said street children encounter stigmatization by the public for reasons that are not of their making.

Street life for such children is the preferred option to the abuse and poverty in their home environments, he noted and called for urgent measures to address the underlying causes.

The Vice President was speaking on Monday when he opened a three-day National Strategy Workshop on Rehabilitation of Street Families at Utalii College, Nairobi.

The workshop, which brings together partners from the civil society, key government ministries and the local authorities, aims at finding comprehensive and lasting solution to the street life phenomenon.

Mr. Awori singled out the supporting and strengthening of foster care and family integration systems as one of the solutions that should be given serious consideration, adding that families supporting children in need should also be supported.

He said there is need to address the issue of foster care in the country, which he noted was facing a lot of challenges and urged Kenyans to discard traditional beliefs and practices that discriminate children who are considered cursed.

Mr. Awori said Kenya is estimated to host more than 300,000 children and youth on the streets who engage in survival tactics that endanger their well being and that of the society.

"Most of them are abused, neglected, exposed to criminal and gang activities, suffer poor health due to their lifestyles and exposure to harsh environment, drug and substance abuse, and exposure to HIV/AIDS infection", he lamented.

He said the large numbers of children who live and work in the streets is a reflection of some of the most intractable development challenges of the society, which he attributed to lack of proper education and family guidance in upbringing.

The Vice President said the government recognizes that children regardless of their social status must equally enjoy their rights as enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Children’s Act, laws of Kenya.

Mr. Awori said it is in this light that the government in 2003 put in place emergency intervention measures to relocate children from the streets and availed rehabilitation, education and skills training opportunities.

He said the Ministries of Home Affairs and Local Government have jointly set up reception facilities for children and mobilized staff from the two ministries, local authorities, civil society and volunteers to provide service for the children and families.

Mr. Awori at the same time said the Street Families Rehabilitation Trust Fund was also established to help in mobilizing resources from the Public, Private Sectors and Development partners and oversee the national initiative.

The Local Government Minister, Musikari Kombo, said the government is committed to providing services to all Kenyans including street families through placing more emphasis on their rehabilitation.

Mr. Kombo directed all local authorities in the country to establish welfare programmes for street families as a way of eradicating their suffering and reduce their presence in the streets in future.

Also present at the function were, the Local Government Permanent Secretary, Solomon Boit and his Public Service Reforms and Development Secretariat counterpart, Ms. Joyce Nyamwea among other senior government officials.

Kenya: Former Street Children Out to Change Life in the City Slums
The Nation (Nairobi)

22 September 2007
Posted to the web 21 September 2007

Arno Kopecky
Nairobi

With the election season under way, Kenyans are daily subjected to an endless succession of photo ops, press conferences and sound bytes. With all the sound and fury, it’s easy to forget what any of these men are actually doing for the people they claim to represent.

Emmanuel Boys Centre founder Daniel Muiruri Nduati with Aids orphans Samuel Kamau, 9, and Kevin Kinyanjui, 14. Photos/ARNO KOPECKY

But a new generation of leaders is quietly emerging that is far removed from the wealthy dynasties now orbiting State House. Working below the radar and without the benefit of a public purse, the youths are all the more impressive for coming from the most disenfranchised corners of society. Unlike so many who make good and never look back, they have stayed on to help lift their communities from the hopelessness of poverty.

"I know how people struggle," says one of them, Mr Daniel Muiruri Nduati; "because I went down that road myself."

Mr Nduati, a soft-spoken 26-year-old, left an abusive home when he was 14 and entered life in the streets. "I started hustling," he remembers; "stealing when I could, doing odd jobs for a few days at a time. I was taking drugs everyday, whatever I could lay my hands on - brown sugar, marijuana, alcohol, glue - I went crazy for years."

Articulate founder

It’s difficult to equate this story with the articulate founder of Emmanuel Boyz Centre standing before me now. But it is precisely his experience of life in the streets that gave Mr Nduati the drive and compassion to start up Emmanuel in 2000. The youth centre has so far taken 300 children off the streets, providing them with shelter, food and a productive environment in which to focus on self-development rather than merely surviving.

At present, the centre houses 40 boys, including three brothers orphaned by Aids. They were all at school the afternoon I dropped in, leaving the gated compound quiet and serene. Mr Nduati explained the religious vision he had at 17 which shook him back to life. He returned home and completed high school with such distinction that he was offered a European scholarship. Although he never graduated from university, the international contacts he made soon led to the funding that enabled him to start up Emmanuel Boyz Centre.

"One of the benefits of having the centre at Dagoretti is that it’s too isolated for the children to sneak back to the streets," he says. "When they first come here, many can’t think of anything other than finding a way to get high. But once they’re here it’s just about impossible, and gradually they learn to focus on other things."

At length the gates open and a van comes through, disgorging an unruly but cheerful crowd of children. Most have been here for months now, some for years; in fact, some are just a few years younger than Mr Nduati.

"I used to run with some of these guys when I was in the streets, you know? I go back and look for old faces, buy them lunch, see how it’s going. If I find someone who really wants to make a change in his life, I’ll take him in. But of course, I can’t take them all - there are just so many new children on the street every year."

People who are too old for school are offered vocational training instead. We leave the boys in the yard and go visit one of them, Samuel, now employed as a carpenter at a nearby workshop.

"Daniel totally changed my life," Samuel, 22, says, stepping away from the bandsaw where he’s carving out a bed frame. "I would still be on the streets, or worse, if it wasn’t for him."

The success of Emmanuel Boyz Centre inspired another project nearby: Dagoretti 4 Kids, or D4K as the locals know it. Founded two years ago by four men in their early 20s, D4K provides shelter and various programmes for orphans and street children while at the same time working to find jobs for impoverished parents and single mothers.

"I used to know Daniel," says Mr Michael Mungai, one of D4K’s founders. "He was one of the people who kept telling us we could make it if we wanted to." Now 23 and studying on a scholarship at St Joseph’s University in the US, Michael recalls the days when he too lived in the streets, selling drugs and working in brothels.

Mr Mungai rehabilitated himself with help from the Pamoja Child Trust, where he met another young man named Peter Nduchu. The two teamed up with Mr Elijah Waweru and Mr James Njoroge and got D4K off the ground. They are now busy planting maize, cassava, beans and other crops on the one-hectare compound. When not busy on the farm, they are heavily involved in community outreach programmes.

"Drunkenness, prostitution, HIV/Aids - these are the major problems," says Mr Njoroge. "These are the reasons so many children keep showing up in the streets. If we don’t tackle the issue at the root, more will just keep coming." Much of their energy is spent finding the street children’s parents. When they do, D4K tries to engage them, ideally funnelling some of the money they receive from international donors into small business projects to help them to get back on their feet so they can take their children back. But he admits that day is some way off.

Their efforts have attracted the attention of such notables as Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, Al Gore, and Jeffrey Sachs. The high profile helps when it comes to fund-raising, says Mr Mungai.

At the other end of town is another inspiration - Carolina For Kibera - which is run by the energetic Mr Salim Mohammid. Carolina was started six years ago when Mr Mohammid was 25, and has grown into a four-tier community-based organisation affecting the lives of thousands of Kiberans.

One of its principle foundations is the Tabitha health clinic where the locals may go for free treatment and testing. "We have over 20,000 people in our data base," he tells me. "Can you imagine what these people would do without Tabitha? I don’t even want to. None of them could afford to go to the hospital."

He takes me for a walk through Kibera, spreading smiles and handshakes by the dozen as we go. In this neighbourhood, he is probably more popular than its MP, Mr Raila Odinga. But he laughs when I ask if he would ever consider running for politics. "Are you kidding?" he says; "they would eat me alive."

Mr Mohammid grew up at Mathare and was a professional footballer in his youth. He’s translated his passion into another of Carolina For Kibera’s outreach programmes. Thousands of Kibera children are now part of the football league he created, but before they can join a team, they must take part in the community clean-ups he organises each weekend.

The programme ties into Mr Mohammid’s "Trash for Cash" project, whereby young men and women are taught how to make a profit from recycling and collecting garbage before it reaches the sewer.

And the fourth aspect of Carolina for Kibera is the Binti Pamoja project, which allows young women to gather, study and talk about issues that affect them. Last year, the girls published a book of photography and personal narratives depicting life at Kibera from the perspective of adolescent women.

The project lured US senator and presidential hopeful Barack Obama to drop in during a visit to Kenya in 2006.

At Dandora, children are learning to break-dance. Kangethe Ngigi, or MC Kah, is teaching them, his back-pack still on as he shows a half-dozen wide-eyed youths how to prolong a hand stand.

We are on the graffiti-covered compound that serves as the headquarters for Ukoo Flani Mau Mau, the Kisima-award winning hip-hop collective that is a branch of MC Kah’s Maono project.

Kah is elusive about his age - "let’s just say I’m old," he laughs, though it’s clear he’s not past his mid-20s. His older brother, Kamau, is 29, a member of hip-hop group Kalamashaka. Together with friend Joshua Maina they founded Maono in 1999 as a way of "helping youths develop skills to become independent."

Maono, an acronym for Mikasi, Anzisha, Onyesha, Njia, Okoa, offers much more than just break-dance lessons. There is also a film and photography school, music and dance lessons and an acrobatics programme. And like his friend Mohammid in Kibera, Kah has harnessed a passion for football to keep children off the street.

Maono operates under a simple philosophy: Each one teach one. Every member of the group is responsible for passing his or her learning onto someone younger.

Emos Okulo, 21, is a long-time Maono team captain about to become a full-time assistant coach. "I remember when they found me," he says; "I was playing football with some friends using a ball made of plastic bags. The next thing I knew we were winning tournaments." He has become a passionate member, putting in 20 hours a week and more on a volunteer basis.

This year, Maono brought in two trophies - one for the under-13 group at the Mombasa youth tournament, and the other for under-12s at the Dandora youth tournament. The children get an additional push from knowing that two of them will be selected each year to represent Kenya at the Norway Cup.

Unlike its counterparts at Kibera and Dagoretti, however, Maono doesn’t get large donor funding and relies exclusively on the contributions of members and friendly people.

Much of the money earned through record sales from the hip-hop branch, Ukoo Flani, is channelled back into the group. Kah’s latest projects are a library and a recording studio.

Kenya: Children Hooked to Miraa
East African Standard (Nairobi)

15 September 2007
Posted to the web 15 September 2007

Lawrence Kinoti
Nairobi

Eleven-year-old Joshua Mwithia wobbles and almost trips as he heaves under a heavy load on his back. This is his fifth trip to Mutuati shopping centre, one of the drop-off points of miraa (khat) in Meru North.

Nathan Karithi, a Standard Four pupil at Nkamathi primary school speaks on his cell phone which he bought using earnings from miraa.

Mwathi is tired and emaciated but he has to toil on because he has a family to feed. His 14-hour daily job involves harvesting and ferrying miraa from various farms.

Mwithia’s plight evokes strong sympathy. His emaciated frame and haggard look bespeak volumes about the high levels of child labour in Meru North District. Mwathi and thousands of other children are not only victims of child labour but are also hooked to the addictive herb.

Orphaned by HIV/Aids at a tender age, these children have been forced to fend for themselves and their surviving family members.

If the children are not employed to pluck, sort out into various grades, package or carry miraa to the markets, they are engaged in more tedious and labour intensive coffee, tea and horticultural farms.

The place of work depends on where one comes from. Those from Igembe District are mainly engaged in miraa farming and business while those from Tigania toil in coffee and tea farms.

Mwithia and his colleagues are part of the estimated 250 million child labourers, worldwide, deprived of education, good health and basic freedoms.

Amos Mwiti supervises other truants of Nkamathi Primary School to pluck miraa twigs for pay at the local village.

In Kenya, according to a report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), close to two million children are working in hazardous conditions. They are deprived of a worthwhile childhood and access to quality education. Most of these children head households because their parents are dead or are too weak because of their HIV/Aids status. Poverty is also another reason these minors find themselves thrown into the harsh realities of the labour market.

Eastern Province is ranked third among the regions with highest number of child labourers.

It is hard for children to remain in school amid the lure of lucrative miraa business.

Peter Kobia M’Nkubitu, a pupil at Karama Antuamuo Primary School, is torn between staying in school and dropping out. He says ever since his three friends dropped out of school in 2004, they are now "successful businessmen". They have been trying to entice him off school with petty gifts but his strict parents have restrained him.

"My friends say I am wasting my time in school while I could be making money. They brag about the money they make and sometimes I envy their lifestyles," he says.

Girls become objects of pleasure for tycoons

Here, the plight of the girl child is even worse. With lots of money circulating at the local Maua town, young girls are easily enticed into early sex. This leads to unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. The girls are prone to mistreatment and manipulation and often end up as objects of pleasure for "local tycoons". Some of them are forced to become house helps, lodging cleaners or bar attendants.

Authorities have been blamed for reluctance to institute strict regulations to ensure that vulnerable underage girls are kept off the town’s streets and bars.

Mr Ezekiel Omwanza, the District Children Officer, says many children are trapped in child labour for reasons beyond their control.

Besides the lure of money, they have been forced to take up breadwinning roles after the death of one or both parents.

Meru North has the highest number of orphans in Eastern Province. It has more than 20,000 orphans and majority of them have dropped from school .

The Children Act 2001 states: "Every child shall be protected from economic exploitation and any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development."

The Act, Omwanza says, has greatly helped in compelling locals to keep their children in school. He, however, regrets that truancy is the order of the day as many children often sneak out of school to go and work in farms.

Omwanza says keeping children off farms and streets is difficult because of extreme poverty.

Miraa pickers are locally known as Ntungi - the uneducated.

The Government official regrets majority of the affected children are aged between 11 and 16. The ones who find the going tough, he says, eventually graduate into street children.

Maua town has about 67 street children. The officer says the figure has reduced from more than 100 in January after his department and the provincial administration re-united some of them with their parents. Others were placed in approved schools through local courts orders.

Guidance and counselling helps street children reintegrate into the society. The very vulnerable orphans, he says, are usually taken to children’s homes while others have caregivers appointed for them through the cash transfer programme.

Under the programme, caretakers or guardians are given Sh1,000 every month to provide for food, clothing, education and medical care.

The programme has had major hiccups. School sponsors argue children drop out due to lack of fees and that some parents discourage their children from pursuing further education because of fees burden.

Omwanza says some children leave school to pick miraa and get fees stick on because they find the venture "very rewarding".

Mr Joshua Mithiaru Kiunga, a head teacher in Nkamathi, laments pupils sneak out to harvest miraa. He says this is the norm in 24 primary schools in Mutuati division.

Kiunga says most lower primary school pupils - especially boys - have no aspirations to continue with their education because they view it as a hindrance to venture into miraa business.

Introduction of free primary education has not helped the situation. Kiunga also regrets interventions by anti-child labour crusaders like ILO, Plan International, the provincial administration and some NGOs have hardly changed the scenario.

Before it pulled out of the district in 2005, Plan International had committed a substantial amount of money to education of orphans. The NGO used to pay school fees, buy school equipment, and provide health services and water.

In 2000, the organisation channelled over Sh3 million through the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) to curb child labour. The projects, however, collapsed at the formative stages.

The pilot projects were in five districts where child labour was considered rampant. The objective was to work towards a progressive elimination of the vice by strengthening national capacities to address the practice under the International Programme on the Elimination of Child labour (Ipec).

Meru North was one of the five districts that benefited. Others were Busia, Koibatek, Taita Taveta and Siaya.

ILO and Knut signed an 18-month technical cooperation agreement to eliminate child labour in miraa, fishing and sisal sectors.

The Sh13.5 million education project and training was being funded by the Norwegian Government through ILO/Ipec. When it was set up in Meru North, education stakeholders expected the problem would be wiped out. The initiative, which was initially to benefit 120 pupils from 14 schools, within Kiengu educational zone, could not survive wrangles between school committees and other stakeholders.

The project involved identifying victims of child labour and encouraging them to go back to school. Income generating projects were to be put up for parents and guardians. In the first phase of the programme, 120 pupils were taken from miraa, coffee and tea farms and enrolled in different classes in 14 schools.

The income generating projects - which included planting of food crops and tree seedlings for sale - were supposed to be sustainable and assist destitute children start and complete education to their levels of ability. ILO had injected about Sh300,000 into the project. About Sh75,000 was released through the local Knut branch office to sponsor some students to tertiary colleges.

In that period, about 15 Standard Eight finalists were enrolled in Maua Youth Polytechnic for various courses. But the programme also died after the initial beneficiaries completed their courses.

The primary school programmes buckled over an acrimonious relationship between the school committee and the then Kaurine Primary School deputy head teacher.

The head teacher blames the school committee for the collapse of the project. The committee, she recalls, put the final nail on the project when it incited parents into unleashing cows into the school’s farm.

But the Executive Secretary of the committee, Mr George Thaimuta, blames the collapse on poor management and calls on ILO to consider reviving it.

Kenya: Awori Warns of Increasing Number of Street Children
East African Standard (Nairobi)

7 September 2007
Posted to the web 6 September 2007

James Ratemo
Nairobi

The number of street children could hit 2.5 million by 2010, unless there is urgent intervention, Vice-President, Mr Moody Awori, warns.

The VP spoke as he launched a Sh119.2 million partnership between Barclays Bank and Unicef to assist more than 4,000 street children in the next three years.

"Of the estimated 32.8 million people living in Kenya, 16.9 million are under 18 years. 1.8 million of these are orphans half of Kenya’s population lives below the poverty line, meaning an estimated 8.6 million children are in need of support," he said.

Barclays Bank would give Sh107million and Unicef will contribute Sh12.2 million to the partnership dubbed, ‘Banking on Brighter Futures’.

Calling on Kenyans to contribute towards the welfare of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC), Awori said the Government was formulating a national policy for children.

The police will provide legal and financial framework "to comprehensively address the problem.

"Giving children a chance to reach their full potential will help them to contribute to the growth of our economy and save the country and society high costs of dealing with the destitute."

He said there will be drop-in centres in Mombasa, Nairobi, Kisumu and Eldoret.

In conjunction with the Government, Awori said, Unicef had also initiated a ‘Cash Transfer Programme’ for OVC in 2004 to solicit for funds from well wishers.

The VP said "the solution is not only to remove these children from the streets, but also preventing them from going to the streets."

Barclays’ Chief Executive, Global Retail and Commercial Banking, Mr Frits Seegers, said there would be three centres in key urban locations to benefit the children.

V.P. lauds Ksh. 119 milion Barclays - UNICEF street children rehabilitation programme

Written By:VPPS   , Posted: Wed, Sep 05, 2007

Street Kids
Provided By:
FourDocsMLP
A film based on a conversation with street children in Kenya about the use of drugs and a A timely window into the lives of Nairobi’s street children who roam the city, beg and then numb themselves with solvents. But it’s their flashing eyes, rather than the subtitles, that tell the real story as they peer into the unblinking lens, knowing that on the other side lies a glittering world they will never enter. Our world.

for more see www.channel4.com/fourdocs

KENYA: Nairobi’s Street Children: Hope for Kenya’s future generation

Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN

There are 250,000- 300,000 children living and working on the street across the country with more than 60,000 of them in Nairobi. Shanty towns like Kibera and Korogocho are home for some of these children.

“I lost my parents three years ago and since then I have been living in the streets without shelter and assurance of having food every day. Nobody cares about me; whether I live or not,” said William Githira, 15, who lives in the streets of the Kenyan capital.

“People don’t want to look at me. I’m trash. I don’t want to live in the streets, but I have nobody. My uncle beat me hard when I lived there, and so I ran. Living in the street is the only way to survive”, he added.

In the past decade, the number of street children has increased in many African countries due to deepening poverty. The situation described by William is not uncommon in big cities like Nairobi and elsewhere in the developing world.

As half of the total population of Kenya is under 18, the living conditions of street children is one of the greatest challenges facing the government of President Mwai Kibaki.

Experts estimate that there are 250,000-300,000 children living and working on the streets, with more than 60,000 of them in Nairobi. Kisumu, on Lake Victoria, and Mombasa, on the coast, also have large populations of street children.

Street children face endless cruelties. Their rights have been violated many times by the adults who were supposed to protect them. In many cases these children are subject to sexual exploitation in return for food or clothes. Often, police detain and beat them without reason.

“Kenya is a mess! The conditions for street children are terrible,” said Miriam Ndegwa, programme associate of Youth Alive Kenya.

Geoffrey, 23, described his experience in a police station: “I was sleeping one night in the street when the police came and took me to the police station. I did nothing wrong. In the police station I was beaten to confess a crime I did not do. [The police officer] wouldn’t stop until I agreed to what he said. He beat me everywhere with his cane.”

Definition of street children

The United Nations has defined the term ‘street children’ to include “any boy or girl… for whom the street in the widest sense of the word … has become his or her habitual abode and/or source of livelihood, and who is inadequately protected, supervised, or directed by responsible adults.”

Street children are also divided into two groups: those who live IN the street (spend all their time in the street), and those who live ON the street (those who return home at night).

Meanwhile, The Cradle and The Undugu Society of Kenya - two organisations working to improve the life of children and youth - divide Kenyan street children into four categories.

The first is children who work and live on the street full-time, living in groups in temporary shelters or dark alleys.

The second category is children who work on the streets by day but go home to their families in the evenings. This category constitutes the majority of street children in the country.

The third category is children who are on the streets occasionally, such as in the evenings, weekends, and during school holidays.

The fourth category is known as “street families”, children whose parents are also on the streets.

The scavengers or “chokora”

Nairobi’s street children are easily recognised with their trademark sacks slung over their backs, searching through dustbins. They are branded “chokora” or scavengers.

In order to survive on the streets, young people often beg, carry luggage, or clean business premises and vehicles. Others earn some money by collecting waste paper, bottles, and metals for recycling.

The children sometimes assist the city council cleaners in sweeping and collecting garbage.

Eddy Omondy, a 15-year-old orphan who has been living in the streets for four years, told IRIN that he used to collect garbage, and help load and unload market goods, earning him up to 80 KSH (US $1) a day.

Some earn their money in less honest ways, pick-pocketing or violent robbery.

Girls are forced to resort to prostitution in order to get clothes or food. According to a 2004 report from The Cradle and The Undugu Society, they earn as little as 10 or 20 KSH ($0.30-0.50) for each client.

Health concerns

In recent years, experts have raised concerns about the health of street children. Besides the lack of shelter, sanitation, and nutrition, these children, particularly in Nairobi, are substance abusers.

Sniffing glue, petrol or smoking bhang (the slang name for marijuana) are their escape from poverty, homelessness, violence and abuse at home or on the streets.

Ndegwa told IRIN: “Sniffing glue helps them to eat rotten food for survival or to suppress their hunger, simply because glue is cheaper than food.”

Some children said they use glue and other drugs to heighten their senses to alert them of possible violence, facilitate sleep during the cold nights, or to numb their physical or emotional pain.

“Watoto wa siku hizi,” - the children of today in Swahili - are mostly ignored or avoided by the community. People tend to associate street children with criminality, solely on the ground of their appearance.

Experts claim that many street children have been accused of crimes simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“My friends and I were just sitting in Uhuru Park when the police came and put us in a lorry and brought us to a police station. They accused us of sniffing glue or smoking bhang,” said Godfrey, 16, from Meru, Kenya.

Photo: Moureen Lamonge/IRIN

Street children and youth are often harassed physically and sexually by police officers or the public. They are beaten or forced to practice sex in return for food or clothes.

Juvenile justice

Experts believe that juvenile justice in Kenya is still one of the main problems the government needs to address, as ill-treatment in prison is in violation of child and youth rights.

Verbal and physical abuse from the community and the police are some of the most common problems the street children face every day.

The police make arbitrary arrests of children for various reasons: loitering, carrying illegal weapons, refusing to give in to sexual demands, or being rude to police officers.

Once in police custody, the harassment of these children continues and sometimes worsens. Abuse ranges from being insulted, beaten, kicked, and detained, to sexual abuse and rape.

“The detention centre is often so crowded that there is no separate cell for adults and children. The food they give is not enough or dirty. And there is only one bucket as a toilet for everybody,” said Ndegwa.

Omondy was arrested by the police for the possession of a pen knife.

“At the police station I was beaten so many times. I was forced to make a false statement for a crime I didn’t do. There was no mattress or blanket to sleep on. I slept on the cold floor in my t-shirt and my shorts only. We were not allowed to go to the toilet, there was only one bucket for everybody if we need to go to toilet,” he told IRIN.

“I’m scared of the police because I’ve heard many children have gone through very bad experiences while they were in detention,” he added.

Children are held in detention in remand homes or detention centres before receiving a trial. If they are subsequently found guilty they are sent to rehabilitation schools, for children who are under 15, or to borstal or prison if they are above 15-years-old.

“Conditions at the remand homes or at the approved schools are sometimes as bad as in police cells. But at the prison or borstal the situation is far worse. In some cases, children are put together in the adult prison due to lack of space, or because they were assumed to be adults by the judge,” said Ndegwa.

“There are reports of children being handcuffed to beds, stripped naked and beaten. Sometimes children are not allowed to eat, or their food is withheld as a form of punishment. They are often subject to sex abuse or sodomy by the guards or older youth,” she added.

The future

In the past few years, the conditions for street children may have shown some improvement. However, experts say that there are still many aspects that need to be improved by the Kenyan government. These include the juvenile system, infrastructures at police stations and police cells, remand homes, rehabilitation schools, and especially prisons.

Ndegwa told IRIN: “For the whole country, there is only one children’s court which is located in Nairobi. Children from other cities who need to appeal in court need to travel far to get to Nairobi. Often the magistrate has to see 150 children in one sitting. This should change in the future.”

There are approximately 250 organisations in Kenya which are working with street children. However, according to Ndegwa, it seems that the UN has not done much in relation to this particular issue.

“The UN is a big organisation and can influence the government to improve the life of street children. Big organisations like the UN are often focused on refugees, ethnic minorities, health, and less attention has been paid to street children. Maybe this is the time for a change,” she concluded.

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[This article is part of a special IRIN series that looks at how conflict, poverty and social alienation are affecting the lives of children and teenagers. Read more: Youth in crisis: coming of age in the 21st century]