By Isaiah Lucheli
Life for street children is challenging as they are viewed as a soical menace. Little has been done to rehabilitate and integrate these children.
The children survive by rummaging in dumpsites for valuables and food. Some resort to begging, andhardworking ones seek out manual jobs. Others engage in petty crimes, leading to frequent arrests. The unlucky ones have been lynched by mobs for engaging in vices.
The children have for a long time been misunderstood, shunned and treated as outcasts. But the introduction of a programme to rehabilitate them by the African Medical Research Foundation (Amref) has started to make a difference.
Elizabeth Nyawera and Nickoh Kori, who once lived in the streets are testimony of the benefits of the ambitious programme to address the increasing number of street children in urban centres.
Beyond expectation
The programme that was launched almost a decade ago at the Dagoretti Community Empowerment Centre has managed to rescue, rehabilitate, reintegrate and resocialise over 1,700 former street children after equipping them with acting and videography skills.
The rehabilitated children have produced plays, such as Black Pinocchio, adapted from the life of a street boy, Malkia. It is an adaptation of a Russian actor, Mapenzi Tamu about HIV/Aids and Nyumba Hewani. All have won international accolades.
Former street children learning to shoot videos. Some make money by recording weddings and other events. {PHOTO: MARTIN MUKANGU/STANDARD}
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Nyawera and Kori’s lives have changed beyond their wildest expectations – from glue sniffing street urchins to delegates representing the country during the World Communication Conference on Development held in Italy.
Kori found himself in the streets in 2004 after completing his Kenya Certificate of Primary Examination (KCPE) after his mother, who is single, failed to raise enough money to see him through secondary school.
“I come from a poor family and this is what pushed me to the streets. I ended up being engaged in streetwise behaviours and got influenced into several way ward habits,” explained Kori.
Kori added that after being on the streets for over two years he was identified and absorbed in the programme by Amref, where he was trained in participatory video after. He later went to Mutwini Secondary School where he scored a D+ in KCSE. “After joining the programme I was trained in interactive photography and was selected to attend aninternational conference. It is during the conference that I was challenged to enrol for education to further my career in videography,” he explains.
His ambition is to work for an established media house, and reckons that his knowledge in video shooting and editing has enabled him earn a living. He is hired during weddings, which have taken him as far as Uganda.
For Nyawera, who lived on the streets in Kawangware, life on the streets was unbearable until she was absorbed into the programme in 2006. She explains that since she joined the centre she had gone back to school at Ruthimutu Girls’ High School and had also under gone trainings in early childhood education, beauty and hairdressing. She has also had the privilege to travel to Italy where she had attended further training.
Programme manager Rosemary Kimani, says 1,700 former street children had benefited from the programme and 54 were undergoing vocational training, while 700 were enrolled in primary and secondary schools.
She adds that the programme started in 2,000 following the increase in the population of street children and since the inception of the project many street children had been reunited with their families and reintegrated in society.
Ms Kimani adds that majority of the children who visit the centre are orphans, most of who are neglected and abused. Since they are vulnerable, they undergo counselling before being enrolled in training.
“The rehabilitated street children are linked up with their family. We identify a friendly family member who the child is close to,” adds Kimani.
The plays they have acted have been shown locally and internationally for the advocacy of the rights of street children and the need for the rehabilitation and addressing the escalating number of children settling in the streets.
“The plays are recorded using the various perspectives that the street child faces and there is no interruption in the recordings or editing of the content for originality purposes and message clarity,” adds the manager.
She added that families of the rehabilitated street children are also trained and counselled on children rights, in addition to family planning and income generating activities like candle making and forming self help groups.
She explained sale of scrap metal had affected efforts to get the children off the streets as they get income from the business. Since the launch of the programme, most of the children had abandoned crime.
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