Projects & Activities for Street children in Nairobi

The purpose of this survey was to compile a directory of street children caregivers and to promote information sharing.

Table 1: Distribution of respondents according to organizational type

40.98 percent of the responding organizations were faith based organizations. The faith based organizations were linked to Christian, Moslem or Hindu faiths. 22.13% are self help organizations which have been started by people of good will to assist the street children and children in difficult circumstances. 18% of the respondents were non governmental organizations.

Figure 1: Respondents’ Year of Beginning the Initiatives

  In 1959 to 1980 seven of the responding organizations had started their operations. Between 1981 to the year 1990 there were 14 new initiatives by the respondents to assist the street children. There were 55 new initiatives between 1991 to the year 2000. 2001 to 2006 there were 39 new initiatives.

Table 2:  Distribution of respondents according to project objectives

Most organizations had rehabilitation of children as a major objective. Few (14%) of the respondents are involved in street work.

Table 3: Distribution of respondents’ rehabilitation activities

Home visits and family contacts 10.13%, provision of food 10.02% and psychosocial support to the children were major rehabilitation activities pursued by most of the respondents

Table 4: Distribution of respondents’ reintegration activities

Counseling 16.74% and community involvement 16.51% and creating contacts with the family 15.81% are pursued by the majority of the responding organizations to enhance reintegration activities.

Table 5: Distribution of respondents’ street work activities

In conducting street work, a majority of the respondents engage in counseling 9.30% basic needs support in form of food, rent etc 9.07% and spiritual accompaniment 8.60%.

Table 6: Distribution of respondents’ outreach activities

The most pursued outreach activities include OVC support 23.13%, counseling 21.64% and spiritual accompaniment 20.15% amongst others.

Table: Distribution of respondents’ approximate annual project cost

To facilitate their annual project activities, most of the responding projects are run on a budget of approximately 500,000 – 2,000,000.

DICUSSIONS OF FINDINGS

•  Resources from Abroad

Several institutions dealing with street children had been forced to drastically reduce or close their activities because of the demise or the leaving of their expatriate founders. Many projects were totally dependent on resources from abroad and did not explore the possibility of self sustainability.

• Government entry in the Rehabilitation process in 2003

When the NARC government took power in 2003, it wanted to partake actively in the rehabilitation process of street children. It established various community centers that were charged with the rehabilitation of street children. The government also established free primary education and school feeding programmes, which in essence ensured that many children could access free primary education and food in schools. The older children were convinced to join the National Youth Service (NYS) where they were taken through various trade certificates. Unfortunately the government action made some organizations to withdraw from working with the street children because they felt that the government was going to provide all the children needed.

•  Rented Premises

There are many small interventions operating under rented premises. In this case, the operators are forced to think of rent on one side and raising resources for the up keep of children on the other hand. This has posed a problem where the other tenants might have a problem with street children or where the landlord decides to change plans on how he/ she intends to use his house.

• Adolescents and Young Adults

Dealing with adolescents and young adults has tended to pose enormous challenges for most institutions. At this time of growth children display habits like rudeness, slowness to respond to orders or answering their educators and posing unbecoming queries that would be seen as “tabia mbaya” or bad manners by adults not professionally trained. Most institutions unfortunately when faced by these problems end up hastily reintegrating the children with their parents or dismissing them from their programmes.

• Corporal Punishment

Use of corporal punishment in some few institutions. Again because of lack of professionalism some educators are not able to understand the behavior of the children and resort to severe physical punishments.

• Lack of Human Touch

Some institutions have fallen into a routine and their approach to the children is centered on providing them with material necessities, but children do not feel accepted and loved.

• Contacting children’s families

Contacting the families of the children under their care has been a challenge for most of the rehabilitation centers. This happens for various reasons; one being that the child was abandoned in the streets when very young and could have little memory of who the parents were. The second could be that the rehabilitating institutions lack the resources to carry out family tracing activities or the families would decide to go underground. This has various repercussions later on, for instance when the growing child has to take the National identity card.

• Reintegrating the children to their families

There is no proper developed system of reintegration to the families or disengagement from the centers. It is often a sudden occurrence and a traumatic one to the children. “What next after rehabilitation?”  Is the most difficult question for all people involved in this field. The risk that children would go back to the street is always present, unless there is a dramatic improvement of the economic and social situation of the country.

• Challenge of working with Girls

In most of the centers the best way of dealing with girls who become pregnant is to dismiss them. Other organizations do not have strict codes that would protect the girls under rehabilitation from advances by male staff who are supposed to take care of them.

• Street Families

Children who grow up in the streets start their own families. How can they be assisted? Their lack of material means is compounded by lack of social, cultural and moral reference points. Rehabilitation centers have attempted initiatives and projects with street families have few success stories to show.