Helping street children to be Street Smart

In a few days' time, Kenyan children will return to school, having had a long two month break.  For a great many, there will be a struggle to find uniforms and shoes for the new academic year, in addition to all the other costs and necessities for school.  What to us in the west seems a small issue, may prove impossible financially to many parents and some children will not join school on time and be tempted to life on the streets.  

Some children, having already encountered difficulties in their home lives during the long break, have already come to the streets and spent Christmas away from home and family. 

We have been more fortunate this Christmas than in prior years in having a mobile school to enable us to interact with children on the streets and to engage their interest in returning to school life.  We successfully reintegrated some of these children and are helping their families to improve their livelihoods and assisting in provision of uniforms.  Our mobile school is not only an educational tool that retains interest in learning among children who have been missing out on school, but it attracts children to our social workers who can then glean their individual stories to start on our path of rescue and reintegration.  And it provides entertainment and a fun learning environment.

We were extra fortunate this holiday to have a young man from the UK spend some time volunteering with our Street Smart project.  He is a trainee teacher and was particularly interested in working with the mobile school outreach.  This gave us an extra pair of hands during the holiday period when more children than usual were to be found on the streets.

It is perhaps hard for those of us from the developed world to imagine a world where Christmas to many children is simply another day of the week.  They are aware of its religious significance but the commercialism, the mystique, the enchantment are totally alien concepts.  For them, it is just another day to survive the dangers, to deal with the hunger. 

For those of us working in CRK, Christmas is a time to reflect and to be thankful for what we have.  We are thankful for our donors and supporters and we are truly thankful for our wonderful team of employees and volunteers who give of themselves, not just at Christmas, but throughout the year.  Thanks to such generosity, we look forward to helping change more young lives for the better in 2019!

From us all, we wish you a very happy new year!

Every day, new faces appear on the streets of Kitale town. Children as young as four who, for a multitude of reasons, end up on the streets foraging for food and income. Over the years, we have rescued thousands of children from this lifestyle and reintegrated the majority of them with family. We not only rescue and reintegrate; we find ways to assist the family to care for their children. This might be short term assistance, during an illness for example, or it may be longer term such as training a family member in a trade or business to enable them to support their family. Prevention is vital and empowering the family prevents the child returning to life on the streets and prevents other family members ending up on the streets. We were fortunate to receive a mobile school earlier this year. This has enabled us to attract more children to our social workers and, through the cleverly constructed story telling panel s of the mobile school, children often tell a story through pictures that they might not yet be ready to put into words. This provides the social workers with an opening to discuss the child’s problems and home life faster than might normally be possible. The earlier we meet new arrivals to the streets, the better our chances of getting them off the streets before they fall foul of its many dangers. Reaching them quickly also means we can often reintegrate children home directly without need for temporary rescue centre placement. The longer they have been on the street, the more likely they are to need rehabilitation. Our statistics for direct reintegration are increasing as a result of quicker access to children in need. This is aided by tools such as the mobile school used by our Street Smart outreach workers. It not only helps us to attract the children, it is cleverly designed to help them ‘open up’ about their issues, while also having a fun learning experience which encourages them to want to return to school. We have now been using this amazing new tool for just over six months and there is no doubt that it is helping us to reach children and youths in a fun and fast way. We are also nearing the end of a pilot programme for a new method of vocational training of street youth. All indications are that this is going to be incredibly successful and participants will graduate in November. We will be reporting on this in our next report.