Emmanuel Rescue Center
Emmanuel Rescue Center
An introduction to the amazing work of Emmanuel Rescue Center. A home and outreach service for street children in Kenya.
June 17, 2007
June 11, 2007
Shangilia Acrobats
Shangilia Acrobats
This is Shangilia Mtoto wa Africa, an orphanage that houses over 200 former street children of Nairobi, Kenya. They employ the performing arts as part of the rehabilitation process.
This video was taken during a May 2007 Musicians for World Harmony visit.
http://shangilia.org
http://www.musiciansforworldharmony.org
http://musictherapyinafrica.wordpress.com
April 30, 2007
Street children given new life
Street children given new life
Jaclyn Cosgrove
Managing Editor
KENYA, Africa — Each day parents across the U.S. practically have to drag their children out of bed as the children beg to stay home from school.
Meanwhile, in Kenya, thousands of children wake up near trash piles, unaware of where their parents are.
No one is yelling that breakfast is ready. No one is reminding them to wash behind their ears or to brush their teeth.
In 2002, the East African Standard, a national newspaper in Kenya, reported a conservative estimate of 250,000 children living on the streets in urban areas of Kenya.
These children are often involved in theft, drug trafficking, assault, trespassing and property damage. Some face harassment, as well as physical and sexual abuse from police and within the juvenile justice system, according to the newspaper.
In Kikuyu, Kenya, some children are getting off the streets with help from a child rehabilitation center.
The center, which the Presbyterian Church of East Africa runs, started in 2001 with 19 children.
It began as a feeding program for children of single mothers but has stemmed into a center for underprivileged children.
Stephen Kabuba, a Presbyterian minister who helped start the center, says educating the street children creates a new future for the children.
“When they grow up, and they are strong, and they’re not taken care of, they become not now begging but demanding, ‘Give me your vehicle keys, or I shoot you,” Kabuba says. “Before, they were begging, ‘Give me a schilling or I smear you with human waste.’”
Oftentimes street children use one hand to beg and with the other hand hold human waste and threaten to smear it on someone who won’t give them money, Kabuba says.
Before the center, street children would not be able to attend school, but the Presbyterian church pays for all the costs the child or child’s family would have to pay.
“The church saw the need of not only feeding their stomachs but also their minds,” says David Wakogy, the administrator for the center.
Wakogy says church members hope to raise enough money to someday have boarding for the children.
The center doesn’t have any sponsors for children yet, Wakogy says.
The cost of sponsoring a child is $30, which includes food, medical supplies and administrative fees.
Wakogy says anyone who wants to sponsor a child can contact him at David Wakogy, P.O. Box 1644, 00902 Kikuyu, Kenya.
Those who can’t send money are welcome to volunteer at the center, Wakogy says.
Kabuba says the center gives the children who have so much potential an opportunity they would have never had.
“The only way to untap that potential is take them to school,” Kabuba says. “These children are not foolish. Because they are born in a poor family doesn’t mean they are poor mentally.”
April 7, 2007
Starring role for street children
Starring role for street children
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By Sandra Jones
BBC News, Kenya |
I am sure all correspondents working abroad have thought the story they are covering would make a great film. Well, a film has now been made covering a fictitious African war and should be on our screens in May.
In front of me, a skinny 10-year-old boy, swathed in gun belts, is balancing an AK-47 between his small bony knees.
Former street children play the role of boy soldiers in a war comedy
He is sitting in the shade of a fig tree. Behind him, slightly older boys are hollering and waving their guns.
One cocks his, and lifts it to his shoulder.
Having chased news stories throughout Africa over 10 years, this is not the first time child soldiers have pointed guns at me. Usually they are out of their heads on drink and drugs.
These children have a terrible life - often kidnapped from their homes and forced to fight by adults.
Their guns and youth make them dangerously unpredictable. My survival strategy is simple - treat them with respect and try to keep my head below the height of theirs.
Never make them feel like children.
But on this film shoot, nothing is as it seems. The boy soldier is actually reading a book, called My Clever Fairy.
Street survival
Some of the other children have laid their guns down and are playing Jenga with the British actress Doon Mackichan. The actor, Martin Jarvis is studying his script close by.
In the next scene, his character, a big beast of the BBC’s Foreign Affairs department, comes face to face with these boy soldiers.
On my other visits to Africa, as a journalist, my team has never consisted of more than four people.
But this time there are more than 40 of us!
Actors, cameramen, directors, security, makeup, dressers, even one large soppy dog. He plays the vital role of the vicious dog in the middle of a minefield.
They steal and fight each other for whatever scraps of food they find 
The boys playing the part of child soldiers, are not hot-housed drama school brats.
They are street children - one of the biggest problems throughout this continent.
Acrobatic team
Survival is hard on the streets.
For safety’s sake, many of these children sleep together in doorways, sewers and shop verandas.
But they steal and fight each other for whatever scraps of food they find. Years ago in a market, I saw a crowd beat a small street boy to death for stealing food from a stall. In countries where survival is difficult - street children are treated as vermin.
But our boy soldiers got lucky - they have all been rescued by the Gilani family, who run a number of successful businesses.
Many of the former street children are now accomplished acrobats
In gratitude for their good luck, they decided to set up a street children refuge.
Yasmin Gilani, one of the trustees of the home, has a simple philosophy: "You come into this world with nothing, you leave with nothing - so you might as well try to spread some happiness."
Six years ago, Yasmin and her family, went out in the middle of the night and found 140 boys sleeping on the streets.
If you come with us, they told them, we will feed you, send you to school, and at the end of your education we will find you a job.
At first there were all sorts of problems. The children were badly nourished, addicted to glue, not used to sleeping inside.
They fought each other and stole. None of the local schools wanted to enrol the boys as street children have such a bad reputation.
But the family persisted. They had a flash of inspiration, a teacher was employed to teach the boys acrobatics.
This needed fitness - balancing on each others’ shoulders in a pyramid four boys high. It also meant having to learn to trust each other, something they never did on the streets.
We had come to Africa to shoot a comedy. But on our last night we were all surreptitiously wiping the tears from our eyes
The acrobatic team flourished, the boys became healthier. They began to take pride in themselves and that spilt over into other parts of their lives.
"But," says Yasmin, "there are still problems. People are suspicious of street children. They move away from them.
"That’s why it’s so good you being here. You’re treating them like ordinary boys. Look, your actors are playing football with them. It’s good for them to learn people will like them for themselves."
New life
As we are talking one of the boys brings round a big bag of sweets. He offers it to everyone in the crew, and only then do the boys themselves tuck in.
David is the name of the small boy reading My Clever Fairy. He was thrown onto the streets by his mother who had too many mouths to feed.
On our last night, we were invited to watch the boys put on a fast moving acrobatic display. David was grinning through it all. It was breathtaking and just a little scary.
But instead of letting us clap them, they clapped us! We felt humbled.
Life has been harsh for them but as they threw each other up around the rafters, it was clear they were seizing the chance of a new life firmly in both hands.
We had come to Africa to shoot a comedy. But on our last night we were all surreptitiously wiping the tears from our eyes.
April 4, 2007
From the streets with hope
Last Updated on April 4, 2007, 12:00 am
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James Keya (not in uniform), a former street kid and pupil of Morisson Primary School, mentors his peers who include Joshua Kamau (left). Picture by Jeniffer Wachie |
By Lynesther Mureu
Picture this: You enter a deserted city street and, believing you are safe, you suddenly sense unwelcome company from behind. Stealthily increasing your pace, obviously terrified about prospects of being mugged, physically injured or smeared with grime, you are transfixed when another street boy appears just ahead of you. You are trapped!
Such were the scenarios that inhabitants of Nairobi were treated to, before street children were cleared from the city streets a few years back. But where did these kids go and what became of them?
Some went mad because of drugs
Sixteen-year-old James Keya entered the streets when he was just 10. Life became unbearable after his mother died. "My dad remarried immediately thereafter, but soon it was fights and constant mistreatment from my stepmother," claims the teenager. With home becoming chaotic, and with hardly enough to eat, Keya ran off to the streets, a life he had heard from other children held better promise.
The boy’s friends, who begged by day and returned to the Mathare slums, Nairobi, by nightfall, had told him there were many generous well wishers to depend on. He remembers his life on the streets: "The first day, I slept in a sack."
He says he nearly gave up and returned home. "I was used to a mattress and a blanket at least." When the promised money was not forthcoming, he turned to selling scrap metal.
Keya became one of the hundreds of street children who were taken into rehabilitation centres by the Ministry of Local Government in 2003. After living in the cold for three years, a tough life he never wants to return to, he found himself at the Bahati Rehabilitation Centre.
He says of his former life: "I saw many of my friends get knocked down by vehicles and die, while others went mad because of drugs."
Besides being provided with shelter and food, he and his colleagues were taken to Morrison Primary School. Having started schooling before running to the streets, all he needed was extra effort to catch up. Enrolling at Standard Seven, he had less than one year to prepare for his first national examination.
In November 2004, he attempted the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination, which he failed. He attempted the exam again in 2005 and scored 311 marks. "I thought I could get a sponsor to take me to secondary school, which didn’t happen," he laments.
The proprietor of Miraculous Academy, a boarding school in Meru, approached the centre to sponsor some students. Keya volunteered to repeat. This time, his determination bore fruit as he scored 367 marks in the 2006 exam. Sponsored for a single term by PCEA Church, Bahati, he has enrolled at Machakos Boys. But will he find funding for the rest of his high school education? Will he realise his ambition of becoming surgeon?
Home among junk collectors
Joshua Kamau, also 16, joined the streets in 2,000, also at the age of 10. He too came from a slum, Korogocho, where he lived with his mother and five siblings. "When mom was alive, life was bearable," he recalls. Though there were many struggles, she was a pillar of strength for all of us."
As fate would have it, however, the hand of death took away the only parent he knew, leaving him with an older stepsister, whom he says made life difficult for him and his siblings.
"I knew many boys who used to beg by day and return to their homes at night," he says. "But mom never allowed that. Rather, she insisted that we go to school." Joshua never thought he would end up living in the streets full time. But street life, in his experience, was better than home. Unlike Keya, who found the streets a haven of depression, Joshua felt at home.
Glue and bhang keep hunger away
With friends who surrounded him day and night, and who gladly shared with him, he had no reason to think of getting out of this second home.
"I was introduced to sniffing gum (glue) and smoking bang, together with drinking beer and other available brews," he owns up. He was told that glue and bhang keep hunger away and, indeed, they seemed to help. But the habit became addictive, and he hoped to stop.
His break came in 2003 when the City Council, in a bid to rid the city of street families, took Joshua and others and settled them in a home in Kayole, before transferring him to Bahati Rehabilitation Centre. Here, he was taken to Morrison Primary at Standard Three, at the age of 13.
Streets open up one’s mind
"At first I was afraid of school because I looked older than the rest," he remembers. Determination pushed Joshua from tagging at the bottom of the class to being among the top three. "The streets open up one’s mind and your thinking capacity is sharpened," he reveals.
"I study hard to become a scientist," he says. In their free time, he and fellow pupils came up with crazy inventions, but they never finished one, because of their busy and migratory lifestyles.
He says he will make it to university, and hopes to find the cure for HIV/AIDS. Having learned of the benefits of education, he doesn’t plan to return to the streets. But not everyone at the centre is happy.
Sometimes back, he remembers, "We were taking some colleagues to hospital, but they managed to run away from what they thought was confinement." He wonders how a human being would opt for the harsh life of the streets.
Enduring the pain of stigmatization
At 24, Mercy Njoki understands life on the streets. She lived in Meru with her parents before her mother became mentally ill and her father reportedly deserted them. With nothing to call their own, they packed and left to live with relatives in Nairobi.
"The first few months were bearable but, soon, we were thrown out and the streets became our only refuge," she remembers. That was 1989. She was eight years old. Her brother was two years younger. Her innocence notwithstanding, the small-bodied woman would witness street violence that included the rape of girls by older boys. On the streets, she explains, young, weak children are under the mercy of the bullies.
Soon, Mercy and her family were playing cat-and-mouse games with the police. She was arrested on many occasions and ended up in many centres like the Kabete rehab, but always found a way to escape and return to the streets.
She explains: "It is very hard to settle in a rehab centre because you are confined to rules that you are not used to." On the streets, she got into the practices of sniffing glue, smoking and drinking.
At 10, Mercy was taken off the streets by Undugu Society and taken to Lioki Primary School. In 1998, she attempted KCPE and scored 535 marks out of a possible 700. "The streets taught me no good, except how to be a hardcore," she says amidst sobs. Her good grades secured her a place at St Joseph’s Girls, Kibwezi.
While at the school, she says, she was visited by officers in an Undugu Society van, which was emblazoned with the visible message, "Educating street childrenÉ" Seeing the van, students of St Joseph’s became restless.
From then on, it was teasing and name calling Ñ even from the teachers. At about the same time, a song by the name ÔWoi, woi chokora’ (a cry for the street child) had been released by a Kenyan musician. The song’s mission had been to highlight the plight of street children. At Kibwezi, however, the music was used to humiliate and dehumanise her.
"At one point, I had said that if that is what educated people and education can do to you, then it was of no importance," she recalls. Her performance in Form One was unimpressive, something she attributed to her social distress. Soon, she was skipping morning and evening preps to avoid the constant mocking.
It was at Form Two that a compassionate teacher advised her against giving up. From then on, her performance picked. She later became a chairlady in the Young Christian Society, drama and debate clubs. At Form Three, she was elevated to a school prefect.
Dreams kept alive
"I was aiming to be a lawyer in order to fight the injustices I saw in society, against the oppressed and depressed," says the young woman. At the end of her Form Four in 2002, Mercy managed a B plain, missing the cut-off point for university, but she kept hope alive. As she waited, she volunteered as a peer educator at Undugu Society, worked as a sales girl, and took part in radio theatre.
Today, Mercy is in her First Year at the University of Nairobi, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, with minors in Literature and Sociology. Her lucky break came from a sponsor in the Netherlands whom she landed through Undugu. "If it were not for Undugu’s heart of helping street children like me, I would still be on the streets," says the now confident scholar. Her love for psychology stems form the relief the profession gave her mom, who is well now and able to take care of her. Her brother is away in North-Eastern Kenya, working as a clinical officer. He too was taken off the streets and to school.
An appeal from Undugu
"Education is the right of every child. It does not choose from any background," says Alois Opiyo, Executive Director, Undugu Society. When its founder started operating with street children, he even sent a petition to the then government to introduce free primary education. When this failed, Undugu started its own schools to help the many street children, who were being discriminated against in normal schools, both by fellow students and by teachers.
"Poor and disadvantaged students, if well educated, can fight better for others in the same predicament," affirms the director. To him, educating a child is like investing for long-term returns. But patience is critical.
Street children need much time before they can get accustomed to normal living. According to Alois, the stigma that society places on such children only works to make them more unmanageable. Undugu’s biggest success to date is a student who went up to the Masters’ level and is now a senior officer at Coca Cola. Nine others have secured undergraduate degrees and many more are upcoming, thanks to free primary education.
They have centres for adult learners and a tertiary division, where they train mechanics students, carpenters and others who do not make it to university.
Like Undugu, the City Council has educated street children, especially at secondary school level. Besides education, they shelter and feed the children, who have eagerly embraced free primary education, but almost grind to a stop as they head for secondary school. "
"We are crippled when it comes to educating street children at secondary school level, for lack of funding," says Robert Mwema, acting Chief Children’s Officer. Of the 26 former street children who sat for last year’s KCPE, three have been called to provincial schools, with the highest scorer having had 383 marks.
March 18, 2007
Street Children in Kenya - Grandsons of Abraham
Street Children in Kenya - Grandsons of Abraham
The idea that any child should have to support themselves while living on the street is a sad one. This video portrays the experience of two i-to-i volunteers that work at the Grandsons of Abraham center in Mombasa, Kenya. The house is a center for kids who do in fact essentially live on the streets. The goal of the center is to show these kids some love and guidance, which will hopefully lead them into a life off the streets and into schools or vocational jobs. None of the children are forced into the program and are there entirely by choice. For many of the children who come from abusive homes, it is an easy choice to make. The volunteers assist with the school lessons, as well as with cooking, games, and pretty much every part of the center. They also operate sometimes as house parents and keep an eye on the kids in their lodgings. The experience is not all work and no play for the volunteers, as they tell how they sometimes spend their weekends at beach cottages on the South African shore and enjoy the scenery of the amazing country.
http://www.maryknollafrica.org/SpeBeaudry.htm
http://www.i-to-i.com/
March 9, 2007
Littleton families can help street children
Littleton [Arizona] families can help street children
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Littleton resident Caryn Boddie with Zadok at the Pistis Education Centre, a school run by Christian Ministries to the Destitute. Zadok had been a street boy, but had been rescued.
Provided by: Peter Boddie
Contributed by: Caryn Boddie on 3/9/2007
Imagine if the children of your neighbors got fed up with their situations at home one day and started walking the streets of Littleton, begging, eating out of trash bins, and sniffing glue. Then, strangers started picking them up, using them and abusing them sexually, then discarding them. We would never tolerate that, would we? And, yet, we tolerate it going on in the developing countries of the world.
According to Friends International, the street children phenomenon is increasing rapidly worldwide. They report that, in 2001, the United Nations estimated that the street children population (3 to 18 years of age) worldwide was 150 million, with the number rising daily. Approximately 40% of these children are homeless and the other 60% work the streets to support their families. Some sources estimate that this number will increase to 800 million by the year 2020.
How do we help these children? We support the organizations that help them effectively: Support the orphans and vulnerable children programs of UNICEF or Church World Service (CWS), walk in your local Foothills CROP Walk (which raises money for CWS programs), sponsor a child through World Vision or donate to organizations that focus specifically on street children, such as Undugu Society in Kenya or SOS Childrens Villages in Kenya, El Hogar in Honduras, or Mkombozi in Tanzania. Contributions to rescue, care for, and educate street children will also be welcomed by The Christian Ministries to the Destitute, P.O. Box 3758-20100, Nakuru, Kenya.
We can make a difference for these children from our homes in Littleton. Read on to know more. Or, just stop now and do something for these children, if you agree with my new friend
Wahu Kaara, candidate for president of Kenya, who said, "The existence of street children in the world is the greatest sin of our time." More About Street Children
Here is a story of two different developing countries on two different continents, and one tragic reality: In these places, thousands of vulnerable children migrate to the streets in the large cities to work and live. They are the street children. Their daily reality is a living hell of poverty, neglect, abuse, violence and hopelessness.
For a class at The Women’s College at The University of Denver I set out to compare the street children and their plight in Honduras with the street children and their plight in Kenya because I had been to Honduras and I was going to Kenya. We had viewed the film The Rose Seller in class, which was about street children in Latin America, and it had touched my heart. But, my awareness of these children had begun years before.
In 1999, my family and I had traveled from Littleton to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to help build houses for victims of domestic abuse. This was right after Hurricane Mitch had caused such devastation there. Before we left the airport to go out to work, our guides warned us that the street children would come and surround us outside the airport and beg. They told us not to give the children anything because it was not good for them; they should not be encouraged to make begging their daily work. Children did surround us and beg, in a big crowd. It was difficult not to give to them, but we didn’t. It was the first experience I ever had with street children.
Recently, I learned that factors that push these children onto the streets include natural disasters, such as Hurricane Mitch; economic crisis, poverty, migration, and abuse (often by family members). The risks they face include poor health, hygiene, and nutrition, substance abuse (it is estimated that up to 90 percent of the street children sniff glue), and sexual abuse, including prostitution and sexually transmitted disease (often life threatening), and physical violence, including murders by police, which have been under investigation (Friends International, 2007).
Friends International also describes the conditions that have caused the increase in street children in Honduras. "During the 1980s, Honduras was surrounded by the turmoil in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala and became a haven for Somoza’s National Guardsmen (known as Contras). The Contra War ended in 1990. Since then, Honduras’ problems have been largely economic. In November 1998, international aid and relief workers poured into Central America to help with the recovery from the devastation left by Hurricane Mitch. Honduras was the hardest hit by Mitch’s rampage. The three days of rain that followed Mitch caused landslides and floods that buried towns and destroyed over 100 bridges throughout the country. When the Río Choluteca flooded, it devastated Tegucigalpa, the capital, sweeping things downriver and leaving behind an ocean of mud. By 2000, the environmental practices that exacerbated the flooding, such as clear cutting, monoculture farming and rapid urban expansion, continued. During the last year the country’s police forces have been (and are still) involved in a scandal involving the murders of thousands of children and teenagers by death squads linked to the police" (Friends International, 2007).
So, what is being done to help these children?
One organization helping the street children in Honduras is El Hogar, which has schools for younger children and the Micah Project for young men. This is how they describe their project for young men, "The Micah Project is a non-profit organization in Tegucigalpa, Honduras which currently supports 24 young men. These courageous guys, all of whom spent anguished childhoods on the streets or in impoverished homes, are now learning to become Christian leaders through discipleship, formal education, and opportunities to serve others who are in need. Our goal is to support these young men as they learn to "act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God" (Micah 6:8). As you meet these special young men and learn about what they have accomplished through the support of the Micah Project, we believe that you will be blessed by the way God has moved in their lives and in the lives of the many people" (Micahcentral, 2007).
To another continent and another time: In February 2007, my husband Peter and I flew into Nairobi, Kenya, to evaluate water projects for communities in areas outside the city. I returned from Kenya in February 2007 after a two-week visit. There I went to an orphanage in the city of Nakuru. As I stood in the door of one of the classrooms, the director of the orphanage brought a young man, a teenager, to me. She said, "This is Zadok. He will give you his testimony."
Zadok was taken off guard, but pulled himself together enough to tell this strange white lady some of what had happened in his life. He said he had been a child of the streets in Nakuru but had been saved and now lived in the orphanage where he was housed, clothed, and fed, and was being educated.
I asked Zadok what it had been like to be on the streets. He answered that it was horrible, very horrible. He said he had slept on verandas, ate out of trash bins, and that he had been beaten up often by the larger children of the streets. I asked him if he had sniffed glue. No, he answered, he only smoked. It was the only comfort.
"In the Bible, Zadok was the priest who annointed David," he said. I knew then that this young man had not only found a home, food, and schooling; he had found out that he was a valuable human being, one who had pride in his name.
This was my second encounter with a street child. Then, on the streets of Nairobi, I saw two boys, one lying senseless on the sidewalk, the other sitting in the gutter watching over him, both under 10 years old, I think.
"In 2002 the East African Standard reported an estimated 250 thousand children living on the streets in urban areas (primarily Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, and Nakuru); this figure was a conservative estimate. These children often were involved in theft, drug trafficking, assault, trespassing, and property damage. Street children faced harassment as well as physical and sexual abuse from police and within the juvenile justice system" (gvnet.com, 2007).
So, what is being done in Kenya to help them these children?
Kenya, like most African countries, depends on private groups to help these needy children. One group in Nairobi, the Undugu Society founded in 1973, cannot take in all of the children in need, so it is organizing the children to help themselves, said John Mshindi, a social worker with the group (Tomlinson, 2006).
"We bring the children into groups of 25 to form an organization," he said as one group of boys played soccer behind him. "They have leaders and develop rules and regulations to govern them."
The groups identify the problems they face and help come up with solutions. The Undugu Society provides food and helps out, but insists that the children be sober to attend the meetings (Tomlinson, 2006).
Our guide and interpreter in Kenya, a CWS staff social worker named Mary Obiero told me that CWS takes a similar approach with its Orphans and Vulnerable Children Program. They empower the children to make a life for themselves by placing them in groups, like families, with one head of household. That head of household is able to get a loan from CWS to create a business that will support his or her "family". Mary gave me literature from the Mkombozi Centre for Street Children in Tanzania, which is doing good work in that country.
Mkombozi tackles the complex issues surrounding child vulnerability within communities. They write that their work involves researching and addressing root causes, enabling communities to value and protect vulnerable children; offering education and work opportunities to each individual child, capturing their innate potential; strengthening family based care of street children and HIV orphans; offering a safe space, love, food and medical care for street children at a residential center; working with street children to break cycles of dysfunction; building their skills to solve problems, manage conflict and live with others; and catalyzing a popular movement to prioritize children and young people (Mkombozi, 2004).
Another organization that is helping is SOS Children’s Villages in Kenya, which established its project in Nairobi as long ago as 1973. Since then the work to help the town’s street children has expanded considerably. Recently a program called "Give a Child a Good Start" was launched in partnership with Unilever. Its aim was to feed the homeless, and recently a "street breakfast" was organized which was attended by over 400 children. This successful SOS Unilever partnership has developed further to help with the refurbishment of a children’s hostel in Ngara, one of the Nairobi’s poorest districts.
According to SOS, "The rescue and rehabilitation of street children is not easy. The very nature of their desperate existence has played a significant role in shaping their characters. They tend to be strongly independent. They wouldn’t survive on the streets if they weren’t. Resocializing these young people can be a tough task. Attempts to lead them too rapidly into a new environment which involves social constraints and different patterns of behavior can lead to failure. They find a return to the streets more attractive than a difficult integration into a society that is foreign to them.
"A tolerant step by step approach is essential. And gradually, as the children are relieved of the day to day pressures of managing their own survival, they become increasingly keen to learn and take part in social activities."
Resources
Campbell Duncan. "Police ‘dispose’ of Honduran street kids," The Guardian, Friday 30 June 2000.
http://www.foeh.org.uk/street_children_in_honduras.php
http://www.friends-international.org/aboutkids.html, accessed 3/7/07 http://www.gvnet.com/streetchildren/Kenya.htm , accessed 3/7/07
http://www.micahcentral.org/support.html , accessed 3/9/07
http://www.sos-childrensvillages.org , accessed 3/9/07
http://street-children.org.uk/kenya.htm , accessed 3/7/07
http://www.undugukenya.org , accessed 3/9/07
McGirk Jan. "Honduras Investigates Murder of 1,300 Street Children Honduras, The Independent, Sept. 4, 2002.
Mkombosi Annual Report, 2004.
Tomlinson Chris. "New approach to helping Kenya’s street children," Mail & Guardian Online, March 7, 2007.
February 27, 2007
State to cater for 5,500 more poor children
| State to cater for 5,500 more poor children
Story by ABDULSAMAD ALI Publication Date: 2/27/2007 |
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February 23, 2007
KENYA: Nairobi’s Street Children: Hope for Kenya’s future generation
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. |
“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.
Juvenile justice
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.
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.
January 30, 2007
Kenya and Ireland work together - Helping street kids of Nairobi
Derry’s Multicultural Diversity Group SEEDS joined with the Changaro Trust to develop an international project to help young street children in Nairobi, Kenya.
This historic venture will see the Trust building a purpose built social, residential and educational centre offering young children in Nairobi an opportunity to improve the quality of their lives.
The Changaro Trust was formally launched yesterday at the Guildhall by the Mayor, Helen Quigley, SEEDS Director Eddie Kerr and Changaro Trust Director Kennedy Keraro.
Speaking to the ‘Journal’, Eddie Kerr explained: "This project will see us creating a purpose-built social and educational centre for young people in Nairobi to give them the opportunity of a better life."
Mr. Kerr revealed that when the project is underway, SEEDS will eventually be looking for volunteers to go and work in Kenya and help make the dream a reality.
"We’ll be trying to recruit groups of young people from here and builders from here to actually go and build the centre. Firstly though, we will be fundraising for the building," he said.
The Kenyan land in question belongs to Changaro Trust Director Kennedy Keraro, who is making it available for the use of the Trust.
Mr. Keraro told the ‘Journal’: "I came here from Kenya and so I know the need that exists out there. This project is payback for me, I want to give something back to that community, really."
Mr. Keraro said that the project will also be formally launched in Kenya too, and added: "Now we are formalising everything and then we will begin with the fundraising.
With regard to a starting date for the project, Mr. Keraro added: "It’s my land and it would be my dream to start the project next week, but there are many practical things that need to be done first."
Official estimates put the number of street children in Nairobi between 50,000-60,000.
A study done by UNESCO revealed that nearly 60% of street children in Nairobi do not attend school, while 37% of the caretakers of the children are children themselves, mostly girls.
The Changaro Trust will help promote advocacy and will lobby for the rights of the street child at various levels, from grassroots to policy.
The Changaro Trust was formally launched yesterday at the Guildhall by the Mayor, Helen Quigley, SEEDS Director Eddie Kerr and Changaro Trust Director Kennedy Keraro.
Speaking to the ‘Journal’, Eddie Kerr explained: "This project will see us creating a purpose-built social and educational centre for young people in Nairobi to give them the opportunity of a better life."
Mr. Kerr revealed that when the project is underway, SEEDS will eventually be looking for volunteers to go and work in Kenya and help make the dream a reality.
"We’ll be trying to recruit groups of young people from here and builders from here to actually go and build the centre. Firstly though, we will be fundraising for the building," he said.
The Kenyan land in question belongs to Changaro Trust Director Kennedy Keraro, who is making it available for the use of the Trust.
Mr. Keraro told the ‘Journal’: "I came here from Kenya and so I know the need that exists out there. This project is payback for me, I want to give something back to that community, really."
Mr. Keraro said that the project will also be formally launched in Kenya too, and added: "Now we are formalising everything and then we will begin with the fundraising.
With regard to a starting date for the project, Mr. Keraro added: "It’s my land and it would be my dream to start the project next week, but there are many practical things that need to be done first."
Official estimates put the number of street children in Nairobi between 50,000-60,000.
A study done by UNESCO revealed that nearly 60% of street children in Nairobi do not attend school, while 37% of the caretakers of the children are children themselves, mostly girls.
The Changaro Trust will help promote advocacy and will lobby for the rights of the street child at various levels, from grassroots to policy.
30 January 2007
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