Joanne Hershfield, Filmmaker

Articles about street children in Kenya

2010-06-28T14:32:00.000-07:00

Read various articles about the "Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children" in Kenya.

http://www.gvnet.com/streetchildren/Kenya.htm

Tom Mboya School for Cerebral Palsy

2010-06-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

One of the most moving experiences I had in Kenya was visiting the Tom Mboya School for Cerebral Palsy which is located in the port city of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean. Their motto is "Disability Is Not Inability." The school was started in 1995 by parents of kids with CP with the help of the Kenyan Ministry of Education. In an area with a population of about 3 million people, Tom Mboya is the only school that specifically serves these children--and it does this on a shoe-string budget. At the moment, it can only accommodate 90 children!

Many of the children have multiple disabilities in addition to CP such as autism and developmental disabilities. Some are bright but because of their CP cannot talk or control their movements. Yet, they are learning to read, do arithmetic, and articulate their needs, thoughts, and desires with the help of dedicated teachers and staff. The school also provides physical and occupational therapy and feeds all the children lunch. Their aim to make each child as self-reliant as she or he can be, to develop their mobility and speech and language skills and to provide them with an education. The school receives some funding from the national and municipal governments (Kenya does have free primary education) but it is not enough to address the needs of the school so parents are requested to contribute 2000 KSH per term (about $25). Most families cannot afford this but the school never discharges a student if the parents can't pay.

The teachers and staff are incredibly dedicated. In addition to teaching and therapy, they provide emotional support and help the kids with feeding and getting from one room to another. The school also provides transportation since most families have no way of getting their kids to school.

Moving the goalposts

2010-06-01T08:39:00.001-07:00

May 26

Today we visited an organization called “Moving the Goal Posts,” (MTG) located in Kilifi near the port city of Mombasa, that uses football (soccer) as a tool to help young girls empower themselves and take control of their lives. The coastal area near Mombasa is very conservative and girls rarely attend school beyond the primary level (up to 8^h grade; students must pass a rigorous test to attend secondary school and it is not publicly funded and most parents in the coastal area cannot afford to pay the fees). The Kilifi area is very poor and many families have no working adults. As in other areas in Kenya, there are high rates of HIV-AIDs and other STDs, drug and alcohol abuse, and incidents of violence against girls and women.

From a very young age girls are expected to help with domestic chores which include cleaning, cooking, working on the family's farm plot, washing clothes as well as selling items to supplement the family's income such as charcoal, corn, and chapatis. Since families cannot afford to buy sanitary pads, girls stay home from school during their menses out of embarrassment Most girls are pregnant or married by the time they are fifteen or sixteen. The options for pregnancy prevention and family planning are abstinence and abortion. Since abortion is illegal in Kenya except in the case of rape or the health of the mother, the majority of abortions are self-induced with the help of older women using traditional methods.

MTG works with about 3000 girls and young women managing football teams and organizing tournaments; but it does much more than this. The organization has developed a number of peer-led programmes around issues of reproductive health, menstruation, sexuality, HIV and AIDS, education, and the development of self-esteem. The footballers are trained to counsel and educate their peers; they begin as volunteers but some are now working as staff members for MTG. Others have gone on to secondary school while still playing football. Some are planning to go to university; others are enrolled in vocational programmes and hope to eventually set up their own business in tailoring, dressmaking, or hairdressing. The girls we interviewed are absolutely amazing. They are very self-assured, self-aware, realistic about their options and opportunities, and are working to develop a plan for their lives so that they can establish healthy relationships and contribute to their families' well-being. And they are also working to be the best football player they can be!

Thunguma Project for street kids

2010-05-30T02:38:00.000-07:00

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.

Working with street kids

2010-05-23T10:08:00.000-07:00

May 23 - Monday
Today we visited two centers in Nairobi that take in street children and involve them in rehabilitation strategies that are meant to keep them off the streets, in school, and develop a sense of self-worth.Joy Divine center was started seven years ago by Mary Mwaru and today is managed by her son, Fred. The center is home to 14 boys ages 6 to 19. Ten other boys are enrolled in nearby boarding schools. The children are picked up off the street by the police and initially taken to city centers which are similar to our juvinile detention homes. They are often beaten by the staff or by older boys. Whenever they can, the boys run away back to the streets.
They come from unstable families or families that have been devastated by HIV-AIDs. Many are orphaned or have parents that are drug addicts. Sometimes, when the mother dies, the father will remarry and the new wife will kick the child out of the house. Most are addicted to glue and marijuana; many have HIV-AIDS because of prostitution or rape. They have been on the street for months or years and do not want to leave. They beg, steal, or prostitute themselves for money and drugs.
Fred is doing an amazing job with the boys. They call him "grandmother" because he is so supportive and caring. The rehabilitation process involves getting them off glue-sniffing, pscyhological counseling, schooling, and discipline. The boys do their own cooking, cleaning, they wash their clothes, and given a certain amount of independence--they go to school and return on their own and are sometimes given money to go purchase something for the center. Occasionally, boys will run away, back to the streets for a few weeks or a month, but most return to the center. A few have been there five years and a couple have graduated high school and have gone out on their own.
Fred's goal is to reunite families. It is difficult but he has been successful. After working with a child and getting him to a more stable place, he travels around Kenya looking for their families or next of kin. He spends time talking with those families and, if he feels they are stable enough, he will bring the boy to meet with them. Eventually, some go back to live with families or relatives. A few years ago he took in 35 IDP children, displaced by the post-election violence of 2008. He was able to find the families of many of these children. Joy Divine used to receive government funding from Street Families Rehabilitation Trust Funds, Now, he must find his own funding for everything including food, medical treatment, secondary school fees.

Schedule for "Healing Hidden Wounds" shoot

2010-05-10T12:58:00.000-07:00

I leave for Kenya next week, May 20th. We will be filming a number of different organizations over a period of two weeks. I'll be blogging about the shoot. I hope you'll follow the blog.

The first is called "Moving the Goalpost Kilifi," and it is located in Kilifi on the eastern coast of Kenya, just north of Mombasa. MTGK works with girls and young women, using local and youth centred approaches to tackle issues related to reproductive health, education, and empowerment. The goal is to ensure girls’ participation as leaders and decision makers
Check out their website: http://www.mtgk.org/

The second organization is "Street Families Rehabilitation Trust Fund." They work with street children, youth, and families, developing individual plans to address issues of health, work, education, and reiunification with family members. We will be filming at Thunguma Academy, one of the Fund's primary locations, about two hours from Nairobi.
Check out their website: http://www.streetfamiliestrustfund.org/index.html

More next week from Kenya.