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Zambia: Government Fails to Break the Street Kid Addiction
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

11 June 2008
Posted to the web 11 June 2008

Lusaka

A pilot project to rehabilitate thousands of children living on the streets of the Zambian capital of Lusaka is failing because government is excluding civil society from the programme, civic leaders are claiming.

Two years ago, the government began recruiting Lusaka’s street kids and placing them into training centres under the auspices of the Zambia National Service - a department of the government’s national security services that also includes the police and army - to provide them trade skills, such as carpentry and tailoring.

But following their graduation from life and trade skills training, the street kids are returning to their old lives, as there has been no planning by government on how the skills could be utilized by the street kids to their benefit.

"We have not planned well in terms of the exit strategy. There is so much government resources that have gone into rehabilitating street kids over the last two years, but there is no thinking as to where the children will go after training," Godfridah Sumaili, chairperson of the Children In Need Network, a coalition of nongovernmental organisations working with orphans and vulnerable children, told IRIN.

"This programme is failing, mostly because government has not worked closely with the civil society. It was executed without the involvement of the civil society. Government should ensure that civil society is fully involved in terms of helping to resettle these [trained] children," he said.

This programme is failing, mostly because government has not worked closely with civil society. It was executed without the involvement of civil society

Moses Phiri, 15, is one of thousands of Zambia’s street kids who were sent to one of the training centres, but since completing his rehabilitation has returned to his old haunts and ways, begging on the streets for money.

"I [have] lived like this since 2001 when [my] parents died. I sleep in ditches. If I see people carrying plastic bags, I ask to help. They give anything, maybe 1,000 kwacha [US$ 0.30], maybe more. I was forced to leave [the] streets, but that programme is not good, it’s not helping us," Phiri told IRIN.

Street life exposes children to violence, exploitative and hazardous labour conditions, such as sex-work and child trafficking, and a plan to counter these influences was drawn up by government in 2006.

For nearly two years the Street Kids Rehabilitation programme has been targeting male children on the streets and recruiting them to one of three training centres situated in Copper Belt and Eastern provinces and one centre on the outskirts of Lusaka.

The pilot project is only targeting boys from Lusaka at this stage and not from any other urban areas in Zambia as yet.

Since the programme’s inception in late 2006, government estimates that more than 1,200 children have successfully completed the skills training and rehabilitation programme, although only a handful of them have managed to earn a living from the skills they have acquired.

"If they [government] want me to leave [the streets], let them also give me job. They take me to camp, they teach me English, they teach me to make beds, to make chairs; but they don’t give me a job after. They give me tools. I sold them for a cheap price. So, I have come back to start begging again, nothing has changed. I have no supporter [sponsor], I beg to live," Phiri said.

The addiction of street life

Poverty and HIV/AIDS are often cited as the major factors responsible for Zambia’s growing numbers of street children.

About two-thirds of Zambia’s 12 million people live on US$1 or less per day, while UNAIDS estimated that about 17 percent of people aged between 15 and 49 years old are infected with HIV/AIDS.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that Zambia has about 1,25 million orphans, or one in every four children, and of those orphans about 50 percent are 10 years-old or younger.

According to government figures, there are about 75,000 street children in Zambia, although unofficial estimates put the figure at about twice that number.

The minister of community development Catherine Namugala, whose department is also involved in the street kid rehabilitation programme, told IRIN the government could not be wholly blamed for street children returning to their old ways after graduating from the training camps.

"It must be appreciated that these skills are just meant to help the children stand on their own, and not continue begging on the streets. The problem is that they are addicted to street life. Street life is addictive.

When a child goes on the street, first he gets scared of the environment but afterwards, he becomes used to it and it is very difficult to rehabilitate him once he reaches that stage

"When a child goes on the street, first he gets scared of the environment but afterwards, he becomes used to it and it is very difficult to rehabilitate him once he reaches that stage," Namugala said.

"We give these children tools to use in their new trade, but the problem is that they want everything to be done for them. Government can’t create jobs for everyone, that’s why we are empowering our children to become self-reliant and, above all, to instill discipline in them," she said.

Viola Kamutumwa, a child care specialist and consultant, said if the skills programme was to succeed, government had to change its approach and instill a sense of independence and entrepreneurial know-how.

"Government should be telling these children the truth that they have to fight for their own survival after the training," she said.

"Children need to be constantly reminded that there is no market for their services, but they have to create it themselves, otherwise they forget and the end product is what we are seeing now - they are back on the streets," Kamutumwa said.

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]

Street children kill guard in night raid Story by MATHIAS RINGA and EUNICE MACHUHI Publication Date: 6/10/2008

One security guard was killed and another is fighting for his life at Coast General Hospital in Mombasa after a vicious attack by some street children, a police official said on Monday. Mombasa police boss Patrick Wafula suspected that the street urchins might have attacked the guards at Nafasi Auto World since the assailants stole vehicle side mirrors and wipers. Mr Wafula said the attackers set upon the guards, who were fast asleep at the yard that had more than 30 cars. He said a security firm supervisor on patrol was shocked to find one of them dead and the other groaning in pain as he lay on the ground. The police official said the assailants climbed over a wall before attacking the guards. Strangled He said the dead man might have been strangled before being hit with a sharp object on the face. Police, he added, will carry out a crackdown on the street children’s hideouts to apprehend the culprits. In another case, two people who were arrested and detained for allegedly murdering an elderly man in Taveta have been set free after the court found that their detention was unconstitutional. Syengo Motoka and Lawrence Kanyingi walked out of Shimo la Tewa Maximum Prison last month after spending eight years behind bars without being tried. No evidence was brought before the court as the prosecution witnesses never turned up. Ms Noel Adagi, representing the two suspects, on Monday told the court that her clients’ constitutional rights had been breached owing to the eight-year detention without trial. Meanwhile, an application seeking to have a Zambian charged with the murder of a Zimbabwean woman released from jail will be heard in July. Murder The application, filed by Mr Kapwesha Cosmas Sampa through his lawyer Mutavi Maseki, will proceed on July 8. The accused is being  charged with the murder of Ms Mary Tafa,  in Diani, Kwale, on November 13, 2004. Interpol were also linking the suspect so similar offences in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Ghana: Porters, Street Kids Registered for NHIS
Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra)

9 June 2008
Posted to the web 9 June 2008

Ernest Best Anane
Kumasi

THE SUBIN Sub-Metro Mutual Health Insurance, in collaboration with the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), has moved to register porters and street-children in the metropolis, to enable the less-privileged in the area access healthcare, under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

The programme resulted from the realization that most of the porters were located in the Subin area.

Launching the mass registration, Ms Esther Odoom, Scheme Manager, noted that most of the porters were dying of malaria, and other common diseases, because they cannot afford medical costs.

About 2,000 porters and street-kids were registered at the launch of the exercise, with 800 of them getting it virtually for free, while about 1,200 would pay the premium of GH¢7.2, with the scheme footing the other component of a GH¢4 processing fee for each of them.

Ms Patricia Appiagyei, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the KMA, commended the Subin Sub-Metro for the foresight, in involving porters and street-children in accessing quality healthcare, under the NHIS.

She appealed to traditional leaders, churches and religious groupings, and heads of institutions, to encourage people to register, and reap the benefits of the scheme.

Address domestic violence to check street children
Thursday, 5th June, 2008     

By Robert Kashaija

I was moving on a busy street of Kampala when I saw the presidential convoy moving slowly. Street children tried to get close to the motorcade but security personnel kept them at bay. I had not imagined that street children could be so brave so as to get close to the President. This is an indication that the problem of street children in Uganda is grave.

Uganda is said to have the highest number of orphans in the world. A-quarter of all homesteads have an orphan who lost both parents to AIDS.

The US Bureau for Labour Affairs estimates that 5,000 children in Uganda beg, wash cars, scavenge, work as commercial sex and sell small items on the streets of Kampala. The number of street children has been rising steadily for the last five years. Almost 90% of these homeless children are from Karamoja.

Poverty is not the only factor behind the phenomenon of street children. For instance, many children from rich families have ended up as commercial sex workers or dancers and petty musicians in bars.

Street children need meaningful conversation with someone they trust so as to regain self esteem and a sense of belonging. In other words, they need to be associated with a home, whether rich or poor.

The Government has invested a lot of money in Karamoja. Why then this exodus of children to the city streets? It seems the money has not had substantial effect or trickled down to the ultimate beneficiaries.

The children and their mothers on the streets collect money from good Samaritans and send it back home. This means there are very few opportunities for them in Karamoja. This is where the Government must come in.

We need to address the factors that compel the street children to leave their homeland to beg on the streets of urban centres. These include insecurity, food shortage, lack of shelter, domestic violence and uncontrolled disease.

Many NGOs receive a lot of money from donors to help destitute people but it is possible that they divert the money to their own use or they are overwhelmed by the numbers. What about the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development? What has it done to curb this problem? Are they also overwhelmed?

We need to address issues like child abuse, torture, neglect and HIV/AIDS. These are some of the problems that force children to the streets. Another important factor is the violation of basic human rights such as the right to life, liberty and security.

The family, which is supposed to be the bedrock for a child’s welfare and protection, is no longer a comfortable place for the child to live in. Children are living their homes to escape domestic violence because of the breakdown of family structures. Schools which are supposed to nurture children have also become centres of violence and crime.

The public also contributes to the problem of street children. Those who give money to begging children encouraging them to stay on and others to come.

The Government has tried to institute a youth policy but it is not enough for dealing with every need of the youth. NGOs and civil society organisations should come in to supplement government efforts.

Street children are a target for witch doctors who take them as human sacrifices. The media has been awash with reports rape and killings of these children. All the stakeholders, including government and the community, need to put in place policies and strategies that address the plight of street children.

The writer is the Western Youth MP

Street Children in Jimma (Ethiopia)
Aid project of the organization kinder unserer welt e.v. for street children in Jimma/Ethiopia

Biko’s lessons for today

    June 02 2008 at 06:02PM

By VIVIAN ATTWOOD

Thirty-two years after the death of Steve Biko, former street children in Durban are using the tools he employed to lay the foundation for the liberation of South African street children.

"When I did the training I was reminded that Biko said mankind was created in the image of God. It was hard for me to accept that about myself. I still felt I was some of the things society had labelled me; inferior, a second-class citizen.

"I thought the terrible things that had happened to me were in some way my own fault. Finally I realised that while I had internalised the messages society sent out, that didn’t make them true."

Bulelwa Hewitt, former street child and co-founder of the Umthombo street children’s project, was talking about the Street Child Consciousness Programme run by the organisation, and modelled on the theories of South American human rights activist Paolo Freire, and martyred South African black consciousness leader Steve Biko.

At Umthombo all former street children who work with children who are currently on the streets are required to follow the Street Child Consciousness programme.

Tom Hewitt describes the theories underpinning the project: "Street children are an oppressed group, just as most South Africans were under apartheid. Society at large, and the authorities, reinforces negative perceptions about street children every day.

"It is inevitable that they internalise their second-class status.

"Street Child Consciousness is a process whereby they learn to re-envision themselves as full human beings.

"It is crucial, because initially they don’t understand the structural basis of their oppression. They took the decision to go onto the streets, yes, but they did not have the full range of choices that should be available to every child.

"Television is a good analogy. If you stand right up against the screen, all you can see is a blur of colour. It’s only when you step back that the details of the picture become apparent.

"On the streets a child feels the pain of each day, but has no conception of how he came to be there, or of his own self worth."

The Street Child Consciousness programme is a process whereby street and former street children undergo an awakening.

They begin to see the situation for what it is, and break through their internalisation of the myth that they are inferior to others.

Reclaimed

Hewitt stresses that, while former street children serve as the best role models for those still on the streets, they cannot be allowed to work with them until they have reclaimed their lost identities.

"It would be as much of an anomaly as black South African policemen were in the apartheid era," he said. "Until you have disassembled the process of marginalisation, you cannot look at it with true objectivity."

Street Child Consciousness is rooted in the writings of Brazilian educationist Paolo Freire, whose writings were smuggled into South Africa during apartheid and avidly read by activists like Biko.

Just as Freire’s philosophy enabled oppressed South Africans to slough off the identities imposed on them by the engineers of apartheid, it is facilitating a metaphorical rebirth for former street children, and helping foster their desire to change the reality of those who are still oppressed.

"The former street children of Umthombo have vowed to lead a revolution in the way that street children are perceived and treated in South Africa," Hewitt explained.

"I have no doubt that this will happen."

Bulelwa Hewitt said the one redeeming feature of her former life on the streets was the spirit of caring she experienced among the other children.

"We shared the little we had, and showed ubuntu. Street children have lost everything else, but they cling to that vital bond. When one of them is sick, the others nurture that child."

Former street child Sipho Mfeya, 26, joined the staff of Umthombo in 2005. His open nature has made him a favour-ite with children on Durban’s streets.

Drawing on his own experiences, he helps counsel the children and guide them on the path that will lead them out of the city and into caring, safe communities.

"I took to the streets when I was 10 years old," Mfeya explains.

"I was living in Umtata, but my mother worked all over - in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London. I was taken in by my uncle when I was eight years old, and we moved to the Jo’burg CBD.

"Between 1990 and 1992 I attended a multi-racial school there.

"In mid-1992 I became a bit rebellious, and my uncle punished me harshly. I didn’t see it as discipline, but abuse, so I went onto the streets of Hillbrow for a year. It was a pretty rough area, even then.

"My uncle would track me down and take me home, but each time I ran away. In 1993 he took me to PE to live with a younger uncle who owned a tuck-shop. When anything went missing, I’d be blamed for stealing, so I returned to the streets. This time I went to East London, because I thought no one would find me there.

"After just two days I met Tom (Hewitt), and he told me about a good shelter where I could stay. I lived there for four years, and then entered anoth-er shelter. In 1999 I heard my father had died the previous year. It really shook me up.

"When I went back to my father’s family, the cycle was complete. I felt great sadness that I had missed seeing my father before he died, but I no longer felt alienated. I went back to school and got my matric."

Studying

In 2005 Mfeya reconnected with Tom and came to Durban to work with Umthombo, while studying IT and following the Street Child Consciousness programme.

"Street outreach soon became so important to me that I suspended my studies to work full time with Umthombo,"he said.

"I am going to register for a law degree next year. I want to make sure that when street kids are in conflict with the law, they get fair treatment and a fair trial. Often there is no one there to act on their behalf."

Recalling life on the streets, Mfeya said that one need is paramount in all street children’s hearts.

"A street child’s greatest longing is to gain acceptance as a human being; to have a sense of belonging. That is first and foremost, even before the need for food, education and a safe home."

          o This article was originally published on page 9 of Daily News on June 02, 2008

Saving the street kids of Kigali
A Canadian program aims to make life a little easier for street youths in Rwanda
Elaine O’Connor, The Province
Published: Sunday, June 01, 2008

Canadian aid worker Jennifer Kamari is pushing her toddler in a stroller in Rwanda’s capital, talking about the challenges of helping the street kids of Kigali, when she’s suddenly approached by two of them.

A ragged girl and boy bleating for money: "Faranga, faranga!"

They look just a few years older than Kamari’s daughter, Isabella. But Kamari doesn’t offer money. Instead, the 37-year-old gives them what she believes is real help: directions to International Teams Canada Vivante Street Kids Association.

She tells them to look for "Jesus Christ" to get there. Those are the blue-painted words on the roof of Vivante Church that serve as a billboard for the city’s thousands of street youth. In this hilly city with so many vantage points, it’s the best way for barely literate children to find safety.

—

Rwanda has the highest proportion of orphans and child-headed households in the world, according to a 2005 UNICEF report. Many children lost their parents in the genocide; now AIDS is creating more orphans.

In 2006, Rwanda’s minister of gender and families estimated 1.2 million were orphaned and vulnerable. The majority receive aid from charities or were adopted. But a 2002 UNICEF study estimated 7,000 street children lived in Rwanda, 3,000 in the capital alone. Their lives are bleak. In 2004, UNICEF estimated 2,140 child prostitutes were working in Rwanda’s cities. A 2003 UN report estimated 31 per cent of children aged five to 14 were engaged in child labour.

Human Rights Watch has documented mass arrests of street kids, but the government is starting to change its tactics. It adopted a National Policy for Orphans in 2003, set limits on child labour and founded a few vocational schools and safe houses.

But there are still gaping holes for people like Kamari to fill.

She and her Rwandan husband, Serge, began ministering to street kids (mayibobo in Kinyarwanda) in 2004. They met on Kamari’s trip to Rwanda to set up a program for ITC. She’d been working in Elmira, Ont., directing missions in 40 countries.

Serge, 32, grew up in the Congo in a Rwandan Tutsi family, the second of eight children. At 17 he joined the Rwandan Patriotic Front to fight the genocidal militias and was only demobilized in 2005 after finishing university. He was volunteering with Vivante in Kigali when Jennifer came to visit. They married in 2006.

Vivante started by feeding Sunday dinner to youths loitering around the church. Under the Kamaris, the program grew to dinner for 250 street youth aged six to 25, 20 of them girls. They now do twice-weekly dinners and educate, clothe, house and find identity cards and medical care for the kids.

In 2006, they began intensive work with a group of 10 youths, renting a home, teaching remedial classes, paying for vocational school and helping them find work as carpenters and welders.

"They’re unhappy with their lives, but they feel they have no way to change it," Jennifer says. "Each of them has worth. They have talents, they have skills. But to get them thinking that takes a long time. To see the lightbulbs go off is amazing. When they have self-worth, they can make good choices."

En route to Vivante, Serge drives by youths with rags and jerry cans of water who wash down cars and scooters for a few Rwandan francs. They sniff gas and are regularly caught by police, taken to an old factory in Gikondo (used to hold vagrants and prostitutes) and beaten. In 2006, a Human Rights Watch report found one-third of the 600 prisoners here were children. At least one has died in custody.

Some of the youths who have survived the prison sit on a bench outside Vivante’s kitchen and talk about what brought them there.

Emmanuel Bizimana, 25, was born in Butare and lost his entire family, save two uncles, in the genocide. The uncles put him out at 11 years of age. He slept in the bush and worked as a porter. He used drugs, was arrested, beaten and imprisoned four times.

"It is a very difficult life. You are just scared. You don’t know where to get food. The police come and take you to prison or just beat you."

Two years ago, he came to Vivante for a meal. They taught him to read and write. Now he’s living in a house and graduated from Centre des Formations des Gens trades school. He plans to be a welder.

"It is like a miracle to me," he says.

"I feel a responsibility to them to do what I can to bring hope to their life,"Jennifer says. "It’s our job to give them dreams."

—

On a precipice above the church in a warren of shacks lives one of the Kamaris’ own dreams — an orphan called Nshutiraguma, 15.

He comes to find them in a foster mother’s home one afternoon. He’s run from his Grade 3 class in search of a pen: The only one he owns has run dry. Nshuti arrived at Vivante in January 2007, not knowing his last name or remembering if he’d ever had a family. He began asking for school fees. He was one of the dirtiest kids Jennifer had ever seen.

"He had absolutely no schooling. He had no idea how to even hold a pen," she recalls.

But he passed Grade 1 exams while living on the street. Impressed, they found him a foster home. Last year, he graduated Grade 2, third of 75 kids.

Jennifer thinks he’ll be the first of the street kids to go to university.

"He dreams of being a pilot one day, which is the biggest dream we have ever heard. Somehow we have to be here to see him through."

eoconnor@png.canwest.com

How to help

To learn more about International Team Canada’s work or to get involved, visit www.iteams.ca.

A brief, brutal existence

    May 29 2008 at 01:53PM

By Vivian Attwood

Street children’s activist Tom Hewitt has compiled a terrible list of names. Whenever he looks at it he is overcome by memories of special young women - most still girls - whose lives ended prematurely on the streets of Durban.

He knew each girl well, the circumstances that had brought her to the city, her idiosyncrasies, strengths and fears.

Remembering Sarafina, Yoniswa, Nelly, Samke and many others strengthens his commitment to reintegrating Durban’s street children into caring communities.

Although street life is brutal for all those forced to endure it, girls are the most vulnerable, said Hewitt.

He questioned whether the word "vulnerable" is far-reaching enough to encompass their condition.

"To be vulnerable means to be open to emotional or physical danger, or to be exposed to an attack or possible damage.

"What terms are relevant to the street child experience if this ‘possibility’ is realised and realised often, even perpetually? Street children in Durban, particularly the girls, often live in a state of affliction rather than vulnerability."

Driving through a residential area of Durban recently, Hewitt noticed three street girls with whom he has a longstanding friendship through the Umthombo Foundation.

The children ran up to his car excitedly, and he queried why they were so far from their normal turf.

"We are running from Isaac*. He is raping us. We are afraid," said one of the girls. Isaac is a man in his 20s who has just been released from prison.

When he is drunk he terrorises the street children, beating up the boys and raping the girls.

"When girls who have been living on Durban’s streets, particularly in the Point area, are tested to determine their HIV status, the results are seldom negative," Hewitt said.

"They live in one of the highest possible risk categories for contracting the disease. When you examine their reality it is not hard to see why."

Hearing stories detailing the suffering of girls on our streets, it is difficult to comprehend that they are vilified by mainstream society when they are so helpless to change their fate.

When we cruise past these children windows wound up "just in case" we might more charitably be thinking "there but for the grace of God go I".

Scorn

Accompanying Bulelwa, Hewitt’s wife, on one of her regular visits to a group of street girls near Addington Hospital, I expect them to be as scruffy as the boys, and equally mock-brazen, in an attempt to deflect the scorn they receive from most passers-by. I am wrong on both counts.

Two teenage girls in pretty but threadbare dresses - too thin for the chill wind lancing down the street - lean together, heads bowed.

When they speak of their lives, they glance up only briefly, clearly ashamed of experiences they could not have avoided.

A third, in shorts and a cutaway shirt, clasps and unclasps her boyfriend’s hand as she describes how her baby, born prematurely at Addington Hospital, was taken into foster care.

She is keen to return to her mother’s home in the Eastern Cape, but is determined she won’t leave the streets without her child.

"The foster mother they took my baby to has changed her birth name. That makes me so sad," Phumla* said.

"When I take her little presents, the woman throws them away. Sometimes she chases me away, too. I am afraid she is trying to keep my child for herself."

Umthombo is currently working with social services to make sure Phumla will return to a stable environment, and that her baby will be taken care of.

She has promised to go into rehab to tackle her drinking problem before she starts her new life.

"Zodwa* fled to the streets of Durban because her mother sold her to a stranger for sex. She was nine years old. Two years later, she tested positive for HIV.

"Over the years she has learned to survive through prostitution and the support of fellow group members," Hewitt explained of another street girl.

"She learned to sniff glue very early on to smother fear and physical pain. She lives on a corner near the harbour with the members of her group. Truck drivers stop at night and beckon her and her friends to their vehicles.

"For Zodwa, ‘work’ involves performing sexual acts on truck drivers and local men, letting them penetrate her fragile body. If you ask her about this ‘work’ she is ashamed. She sees herself as the dirty one.

"Sometimes she gets really sick. She rolls herself into a ball under a pile of old clothes and cardboard on the street corner, shutting the world out for days on end. She gets thin. Sleep is an escape. She is bright and informed. She knows exactly what happens when you have full-blown Aids. She waits, just her and her glue bottle."

In the first part of our series on street children, printed on Tuesday last week, Bulelwa spoke movingly about growing up on a waste dump in East London.

She managed to scrounge enough food to survive. Some of her friends were less lucky.

Abusers

"I was misquoted in the media some time ago, and it really exasperated me. I had been speaking to a reporter about my experience as a young girl growing up on the streets, and I’d mentioned the tragedy that reduces some girls in that position to allow abusers access to their bodies in order to keep alive.

"When the report was published, the headline screamed: ‘Former street child prostitute speaks out’.

"It wasn’t that I minded being labeled a former prostitute erroneously. It was the fact he was demonising a certain sector of street children without any idea of what they endure to reduce them to that position, which really infuriated me." In his zeal to secure a scoop for his newspaper, the reporter was buying into the prevailing stereotype that all girls on the street turn to prostitution.

It is true that the majority are sexually exploited in some way, but the label "prostitute" is an unfair one.

Hewitt says: "When a girl arrives on the street it is not long before she attracts interest. Usually it is a boy or young person living on the streets who sees the opportunity for a girlfriend.

"This can mean rape, coerced sex or even fully consensual sex. Often the boy is not sinister but simply acting on normal teenage impulses, albeit in a very abnormal and anarchic environment. This can result in sexual activity almost immediately.

"At other times when a girl arrives on the streets she falls victim to older youths and other men. She is hungry, disorientated and desperate and will do literally anything to survive or feel ‘protected’.

"For many, the first night on the streets is a new chapter in the rape experience of their lives. There is always someone there, ready to prey on new arrivals."

# * Names have been changed

          o This article was originally published on page 10 of Daily News on May 29, 2008

Botswana: BCC Caters for Street Children
Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)

29 May 2008
Posted to the web 29 May 2008

Tumelo Setshogo

The number of street children in Gaborone has compelled the Botswana Council of Churches (BCC) to propose programmes to help them become part of the society.

The street children, according to BCC general secretary, David Modiega, are dropouts from primary up to senior secondary schools.

He said one of the reasons why these children are giving of why they have left school are, difficulties in understanding some subjects especially mathematics while others just left without any problems.

The organisation developed street vocational programmes such as re-education where they are taught construction, carpentry, social studies, computers, English and mathematics. lessons are done at Tsholofelong Project situated at Old Naledi.

Modiega told Mmegi that they have at least 56 children who are going through these programmes.

There are eight girls and 48 boys from Old Naledi.

He said the programme is aimed at encouraging them to go back to school to continue where they left off. Apart from the re-education component, Modiega said they rehabilitate students from drugs and re-integrate them into the society and "their parents".

"We are also imparting fund raising skills to them where we encourage them to save by helping them to open accounts at post offices," noted Modiega, adding BCC users Marimba instruments to raise funds.

However, the BCC spokesperson revealed that not all children are willing to go back to school as some fear stigma from their colleagues. "Stigma attached to them is that they are called ‘bo bashi’ and things like they are the BCC children," said Modiega.

To avoid this stigma, he told Mmegi that students should instead go to schools where they are not known and "they excel".

Meanwhile, Modiega said they are not indoctrinating the street children into any religion, but they are just doing their social responsibility programme as the churches. He also said it is difficult to convenience them (street children) about their programmes as they are used to the life of the street. "We have to first develop trust with them and propose to them nicely," he noted.

Modiega revealed that they have young people within their staff members who are helping in the recruitment exercise. He said as young people they have what it takes to talk to the street children and develop some form of friendship with them.

"We have to have a lot of patience as sometimes they run away when approached," said Modiega.

BCC also is developing their plot in Tsolamosese where they will build a hall and two classrooms for carpentry for girls. "Livestock and horticulture are some of the projects we will include at this plot," note Modiega.

The funds they are using for their Tsholofelong project are from Botswana National Youth Council (BNYC), Department of Culture and Youth (DCY) and rentals they get from Kopano building.

In other issues, Modiega told Monitor that before they parted ways with a Dutch NGO, ICCO, a few years ago, they managed to build approximately 50 two-roomed houses for families in Old Naledi.

He said their agreement with ICCO fell apart when Botswana was declared a middle income country "but we are looking at reviving the programme. We have identified OIKCREDIT Programme International for assistance".

OIKCREDIT is an international cooperation of churches which funds projects like "the one we used to build houses for the needy people. If funds could come through, we will want them to revolve so that more people can benefit".

Fuelled by the desire to make a difference

    May 23 2008 at 03:27PM

By Vivian Attwood

Val Mellis, the Senior Public Prosecutor at the Point magistrate’s court, has pretty much seen it all.

In a career encompassing many years’ involvement with child welfare and, more recently, taking a particular interest in the rights of street children in the Point area, she has been exposed to the underbelly of a society that still places a low premium on the safety and wellbeing of its
youth.

By rights, she should be hardened to much of what she encounters. Not so.
‘The rights of the child shall be paramount’

Although colleagues wonder how she can shoehorn everything she does into her working day, be a mother to two young daughters and still be on call 24/7 for people in crisis, she is fuelled by the desire to make a difference in her jurisdiction. The issue of street children is a passion.

"It’s pretty much an all-encompassing job," she concedes.

"I took my present position in 2007, because I like the idea of a fresh challenge."

The Public Prosecutor was challenged immediately - to attempt to keep her fury under control when, on May 25 that year, the provincial department of welfare blew the budget it had been allocated to assist the homeless, on a massive street party.

"To me, that was nothing short of criminal," she said.
‘It’s absolutely crucial that a first-phase shelter is established’

"I hate those so-called event days. Instead of lavishing money on something with no long-term benefit, we need to put continuous programmes in place for the homeless, particularly the street children.

"Some provinces - the Western Cape being a case in point - have legislation on street kids, and a functional, well-regulated system. It is up to the provincial department of welfare to draft similar legislation for KwaZulu-Natal and submit it to parliament."

Mellis is adamant that government stakeholders have to be held accountable for the fate of the street children.

"Section 28 of the Child Care Act states: ‘The rights of the child shall be paramount’," she said.

"We are committed to putting their interests first."

Commenting on the controversy that has flared each time Metro Police officers rounded up street children to remove them from the gaze of those attending events to promote the city, Mellis said: "The round-up approach simply doesn’t work. We need a co-ordinated effort and a task team where every member knows the mandates of the others. At the moment it’s hopelessly disparate."

The prosecutor said that while the Metro Police and the street kids don’t see eye to eye, the Point SAPS take a more sympathetic approach to issues concerning street children.

"I can guarantee you that since February last year the Point SAPS have not conducted a single round-up of street children. They are concentrating on building bonds with the kids to avoid problems."

In 2007 Mellis’s department ran a project targeting homeless adult men. They were taken off the streets, put up at hotels on Marine Parade, and given jobs with the Department of Parks and Recreation for three weeks.

A proviso was that they did not abuse substances during that period.

"The project produced encouraging results, but the most problematic participants were those who had grown up on the streets," she said.

"They were all over 18, but lacked birth certificates and ID documents. In many cases there were no families to contact for details of their date and place of birth. They were battling with addictions.

"One young man struck me in particular. He was a lovable rogue. We were grooming him with the hope of getting him off the streets, but then he blew it by committing a crime, and ended up in prison. I was agonising about why he’d thrown away his chances, when another member of the team explained that he’d not been able to kick his glue-sniffing habit."

Mellis decried the public tendency to dehumanise children living on the streets. Sadly, she said, the children can all too easily internalise the belief that they are subhuman.

"It is scary to contemplate, but if you don’t have an ID book, you literally don’t exist. You are a nothing in society, and therefore you have no self-worth. Why not turn to crime? The guy who doesn’t in those circumstances is a pretty remarkable individual."

The loss of family to HIV and Aids, poverty and abuse are some of the reasons children end up on city streets. Mellis related a recent incident that brought her to tears.

"It was pouring with rain and I found a small boy huddled in a doorway. His face wasn’t familiar, so I stopped to question him.

"He said he was 13 years old and came from Umlazi. Both his parents had died, followed by the aunt who was caring for him. He had no one left in the world."

Mellis identified two critical areas that need to be addressed to ensure that street children do not fall through the cracks.

"It’s absolutely crucial that a first-phase shelter is established. Not at the Point, though, because there is too much temptation and the children will backslide. The second pressing need is to co-ordinate efforts to help the street kids. I want to convene a meeting with all the stakeholders so that they can explain their mandates and begin pooling efforts."

She praised the work done by Umthombo and I-Care in particular: "They are doing an excellent job and I support them in their efforts. They are working within the legal system and following the processes so that the kids are assigned a social worker and are properly assessed. The city has tended to have a poor reputation in that regard."

Apart from the other forms of degradation street children are subjected to, Mellis is greatly concerned by the prevalence of sexual assault on both male and female children on the streets.

"Sometimes they endure the exploitation because of a financial incentive, but that is by no means always the case," she said.

"Cars stop at night and lure the children in. Law enforcement is not keeping track of these sex offenders, although Umthombo is attempting to compile a database on the issue."

Sadly, even when sex offenders who prey on children are identified and arrested, it does not follow that they receive jail terms, said Mellis.

"In every case where we have tried to prosecute these offenders, the cases collapse because the kids are too terrified to testify, and run away," she said.

"My job does get very intense, and the after-hours demands are tough, but you have to be available to help, because you might be the only chance some child has."

          o This article was originally published on page 10 of Daily News on May 23, 2008