Thunguma Project for street kids

May 30
Thunguma Rehabilitation Project, another program that works with street children was started in 2006 with seed money from the Street Children's Rehabilitation Trust Fund. It is located in Nyeri, about 3 hours from Narobi. Right now, Thunguma serves 132 kids from the age of five through 20. No child is forced to come to the center. The staff is referred to children by police, family, and social workers. They approach the children and tell them about the center and the support that is available. The child must choose to come to Thunguma voluntarily and can leave whenever they want to.
The project focuses on three components:
1. Education: When the children first arrive, many have been on the street for months or years and cannot function in a school setting. They may have drug addictions and other health issues that makes it hard for them to concentrate and they are not used to structure and discipline. First, their health needs are taken care of and they are counseled and tutored one-on-one for short periods of time--maybe twenty minutes--until their concentration improves. Eventually, they are mainstreamed into local primary school classrooms. Although most have had little formal education, some develop dramatically intellectually and also in terms of their leadership skills. Many can't go on to secondary school [high school] because they can't afford the fees or pass the required tests. Thunguma offers vocational classes for these kids in carpentry, welding and metal work, and dressmaking. We met one young woman who now has her own dressmaking business in a small kibanda [a stall for selling things] near the center. Colorful dresses, skirts, blouses, and handbag hung from the walls of her kibanda where she sat working her foot-pedal Singer sewing machine. She also sold fruits, vegetable and charcoal. A very industrious ex-street kid!
2. Psychosocial intervention: The kids who come to the center have a history of trauma. Many lost their parents to HIV-AIDs; some have tested positive themselves. A lot have suffered physical and sexual abuse at home and in the street and most are addicted to some kind of drug or to glue sniffing. Interventions include help with drug withdrawal, counseling, life skills training to help them learn how to make decisions, set goals, develop self-determination and self-esteem.
3. Sustainability: The Program Director, Paul Maina, told me of the center's plans to become a self-sustaining "eco-community." They have a farm that the children manage that provides food for the center and they also have a health clinic managed by a trained nurse that has been recently opened up to the local community. Maine's goal is that eventually, the local community will take over operation of the the center.