LIFE THROUGH THE LENSES OF STREET CHILDREN
how many of you have interacted with a
street girl
or a street boy as you think about that
when you interacted with that street
child what did you feel
a sense of connection or a sense of
aloofness
i was in the second category well
i felt that the children on the streets
were really not worthy of my time
but this changed at a point in time as i
progressed in my journey
as a as a mental health professional i
got to interact with a group of street
boys
and they helped me to have a totally
different view
about their lives as boys and girls on
the street
generally children are vulnerable and
they require responsible adults
to support them secondly because
they have had the life on the streets
and the street has many challenges
and these challenges they have had to
endure and thirdly
because they had challenges in their
homes
that led them to get out onto the
streets now
what happens when these children
experience this kind of challenges
one they are exposed to
inability to thrive as children that is
really impacted
then those of us out here get to view
them
as lesser beings in many ways and as a
consequence
they have low self-esteem and their
outcomes in life
end up being pretty pretty low the most
common form of help
that is usually available to these
children is in the form of
cash and offers in kind
in the line of basic needs there is
actually so much more that we
can support them with to help to empower
them and to get them to enjoy life
in a better way than they have when they
live on the streets
yeah now i’d like to illustrate
my learnings in those three areas with
three stories
from three different children who have
lived their lives on the streets
the first story is of a young boy called
jay
jay was born to a mother who was a
teenager at the time of his birth
unfortunately for jay he got to
experience
rejection pretty early on the father
chose
not to participate in his upbringing and
hence the mother had to raise him
alone this was not quite comfortable but
what to do the mother tried the best she
could
after a couple of years of raising jay
alone
jay’s mother got to meet a gentleman
with whom
she decided to continue to live her life
as a couple
so jay now had a stepfather the mother
hoped that life would be better
for jay but this was not to happen
because unfortunately for him
the stepfather did not embrace him as
his child
their stepfather did not have positive
things to say about jay
in fact he found wrong in almost
everything
that jay did which was quite unfortunate
in his failure to embrace jay and
even as life continued they got other
children so jay had siblings
he discriminated openly against jay
he would buy things for the other
children and not buy fuji
when jay would go to school he’d get
some provisions
sometimes you didn’t get so life was
really really tricky
when the mother tried to intervene she
would be told you know what go look for
the father
i do not want anything to do with this
so at the point
that jay felt this was too much at the
age of nine years
out he went onto the street seeking a
better life
enters sal now sal
was born in a big family with six
siblings
and as life would have it unfortunately
for her the mother
became terminally ill at six years
she could only but hope and pray that
the mother would get better
and she said prayers she shared with her
friends in school
in sunday school and they prayed but
progressively
the situation got worse so one day when
sal came from school
she came and found the house was really
full with people
and most of them were strangers so she
looked around trying to see if there was
anyone familiar and she saw an auntie
and said
auntie auntie who are these why are they
here
and auntie said sal please go out and
play
so this was not that response that she
was expecting
so what did she do she stepped out but
she didn’t go to play she just sat by
the door
and decided to listen to the
conversation that was going on
in the house as she listened she had
some of the adults say
oh it was really sad it was really sad
that we lost
this lady she was such a good lady life
is not fair
it’s like hey which lady shortly a group
of new visitors came
and they’re calling the mother’s name
and they were crying and they were
saying life is cruel
that she’s dead and it’s at that point
that sal then realized that the mother
had actually
died a very sad way to find out
anyway what to do the preparations for
the burial were completed
they traveled to the village as is
customary in the kenyan context
they buried the mother and came back to
a new life without mom
now this new life was really really
tricky why
because what the dad chose to do is to
empower the
older brother to sal the eldest son in
the family
to be the one responsible for the daily
running of the family because he will be
busy
out there working and trying to bring in
resources for the family
now this older brother happens to be a
14 year old
so really not quite able to take care of
these responsibilities so you can only
but imagine
how things went in that house of seven
children
where sal was one of them so many other
times when
they were not able to get their
breakfast in good time they were not
able to get lunch to carry to school
the provisions in school were not
provided the dad was really not very
progressive
and i would imagine perhaps he was
dealing with issues of grief and loss
in his own way and he assumed that since
he was bringing in the
what he considered to be necessary the
rest was detailed
now this continued and it got to a point
that these siblings were not
really relating very well and sal
figured that she just couldn’t deal with
that situation
and she looked for a way out and out
into the street she went
now the third story is of a boy called
troy troy was born into a family that
had
conflict that was continuous ongoing
the parents were at each other every
other opportunity that they got
they would fight they would shout and
many other times that
troy had to find himself between the
parents trying to separate them at that
age
the child believes that these things are
happening because of them so he really
tried
but of course it was not his battle to
fight
and this you know this disagreements
continued
so what did it end up being at four
years old
troy’s mother decided i’m not going to
continue in this relationship i am out
and she did not live with troy she left
him
so troy’s dad after some time
remarried and now troy had a stepmother
it was hoped that in having a mother
figure in the house
life would be different but this was not
to happen
troy’s father was working out of town so
he was rarely at home
so it was troy and the stepmother
stepmother did not embrace troy
so life was really really really
difficult for troy
so she prioritized everything else
over the needs of troy she would go she
would disallow him to go and play before
all the work that she assigned him
was done and the work was not
age-appropriate
when she got her own children she made
it the business of troy to attend to the
needs of
the siblings whilst troy didn’t mind
because these were his siblings
it was way too much in terms of school
work
he had to prioritize school last
he would come from school he would clean
he’d wash dishes he’d
attend to the younger siblings then do
homework
so many other times that he actually did
not get to finish
the homework or if he did it wasn’t well
done
and when he went to school and the
teachers were concerned they asked for
the parents to come
stepmom no show daddy not present
and hence the situation continued so
as this happened through time
troy found that this was just too much
for him to deal with
and so he decided he needed some peace
and out to the streets he went
now when we look at these stories
which are representative of the
experience of many of the boys and girls
on the streets
you realize that they actually are
victims
of trauma this conflict this
failure to be provided with what is
basic there is
abuse in its different forms physical
emotional
psychological and there’s even being
forced to do things that are not
age-appropriate
and those are things that are not unique
to these boys and girls on the streets
many people out here experience those
things the question is
how do we deal with them these boys
took a step of courage to just get out
of that very uncomfortable situation
and find try to find a way in which
they would actually you know get
themselves some sense of relief
now when this happens the unfortunate
thing for them is
they come to the realization that this
new life out in the streets
is actually not better than the life at
home
it is different but not better one
there is no parent there to take care of
them so they must take care of
themselves
and how do they do this they enter into
begging activities
they engage in manual jobs and some of
them even engage in theft
which is quite unfortunate and they do
this with the
of trying to survive these children
generally love school they actually love
school but when they are on the streets
they’re not able to go to school why
because one they have to take care of
themselves too
they do not have sufficient resources to
keep them in school
and hence they miss out on the learning
opportunities
the other thing that happens is that
children
thrive with play they grow and develop
well when they have an opportunity to
play in a safe and structured way
when these boys and girls are on the
streets that is not a possibility
because one the streets are not designed
for play
and two they will be busy trying to fend
for themselves
and hence no opportunity to play in the
way that helps them to grow
and thrive the other thing for us to
note is that
those experiences that lead these boys
and girls out of their homes
are really stressful experiences and the
experiences that they come and meet on
the streets
are equally stressful so these combined
things
lead to very high levels of stress and
even distress
and they seek to do something to bring
it down
so many of them would engage in
self-medication
you’d find them partaking alcohol you’d
find them smoking cigarettes
smoking cannabis sniffing glue in our
kenyan contacts
they even sniff jet fuel and these are
myriad of other things
that they would interact with with the
view of trying to relieve
the distress that they have we also
realize that on the streets
they do not have appropriate adult
supervision
so even if it wasn’t for the anguish
that they’re experimenting
there is no adult to guide them away
from that kind
of engagement so they find themselves in
that situation
the streets are not safe they’re not
safe
for the fact that they’re not designed
to be homes so as they’re out there
they’re exposed to physical challenges
they’re exposed to
bullying and abuse by other street
children and even adult
perverts so it’s really unfortunate that
these boys and girls
get to experience those sort of things
so then the big question is with that
realization
and being persons that can relate to
them and want to make a significant
difference in their lives
what are some of the things that we
could do i would like to talk about
three of those things one is
assist them to get into a structured
arrangement
to be able to access what is considered
to be basic needs
and basic rights we tend to give them
handouts
you know in terms of cash and even other
things in kind whilst that helps it
doesn’t really
operate in a sustainable model so it is
incumbent upon us to look for ways
in which we can do this in a more
sustainable manner
the other thing that i’d like us to
think about is
how do we help these boys and girls who
are
living their lives on the streets to
connect with a stable family
stability and family relations are key
for children to thrive and even adults
so it is
a responsibility that we have as persons
of interest
to find ways to help these families
listening to the stories that have been
shared we find that some of these
families
have serious challenges so it then means
that if we want to help these children
then we need to look into their family
situation it could be a situation
where we help to empower the families to
be economically stable
it could be a situation where we help
them to access
new skills in the range of parenting
skills so that they’re
better able to parent their children in
more effective ways
it could also be ways of re connecting
them to
rehabilitation services because you find
that some of them
have experienced issues of substance
abuse disorder and are
not able to function very optimally as
caregivers
so those are some of the things that we
could do and perhaps others
to link these children to a stable
family set up
the other thing that we could do is to
act as role models
to these children these boys and girls
like the boys and girls in our homes
desire and thrive on what they see
yeah so if they see things that are not
particularly appropriate
they are more likely to act in those
ways so think about it
this child has grown up in a home where
the behavior that is modeled isn’t the
most appropriate
they have gone into the street and what
they’re exposed to
is really behavior that is not
appropriate as well
and yet we expect them to actually grow
up and become
responsible citizens now that is a
difficult thing for them to achieve
so when we step up and we model for them
the positive ways of behavior then we
actually contribute
to a big difference in their lives
so my question to you is this as we walk
into this new dawn
in africa are you able to see life
through the lenses of the street child
thank you
you