Child Protection Kenya Project #19969

Helping street children to be Street Smart

by Child Rescue Kenya

Project Report | Jul 5, 2018
A new chapter

By Theresa Heasman | Project Leader

Studying at Street Smart

We are entering a new chapter at Child Rescue Kenya this month. On July 1^st our new partnership with Agape started. They are an organization that has been effective in the Kisumu area for many years, sharing our ‘rescue, rehabilitate and reintegrate’ philosophy. Like CRK, Agape work predominately with street-connected young people, and children placed in their care by government authorities, working with families to enable the children to return to an improved home life, rather than entering institutional care. Agape expressed interest in coming to Kitale to assist with the rising numbers of children on the streets and we agreed that transferring our transitional care centre to them to run while we concentrated our efforts on our other programmes, rather than duplicating efforts and costs, would be the most effective way to help vulnerable children in the Kitale area. Agape took over the running of the centre this week and are a very welcome addition to Kitale.

Working together will enable us to reach more families. Urbanisation, inflation, famine and drought all contribute to the increased numbers of families moving to Kitale. We can advocate together for change in policies and practices to benefit young people and their families. Our street work through Street Smart continues. We are now focusing on the impact of our outreach work with children on the streets to increase the number of children who can be reintegrated directly from Street Smart. We are also expanding our focus on preventing such large numbers of children accessing the streets or returning to the streets, a situation largely preventable by reducing poverty. Poverty is not the only factor sending children to the streets but it is the main cause. Improving communities and family support is crucial to making our rescue/reintegration process successful and sustainable.

Since March we have also been battling a change in the climate. After the drought and the related migration of young people and their families to Kitale and the subsequent rise in street-connected children, the rains have come in force and the parts of the country that had suffered the most severe drought, have now experienced flooding. These floods caused landslides and washed out entire villages. There are only two roads that travel from southern to northern Kenya – one on the east side of the country and one on the west. The road on the west goes through Kitale town and this road has a bridge at a place called Kainuk. This road is the main artery to north west Kenya. It has been destroyed twice this year by the extreme force of the flooded river that passes beneath. In each case, the temporary ‘fix’ has not been able to withstand the forces of nature. This cut off traffic to the region carrying much needed building supplies, food and other aid intended to help people remain in their home areas.

The bridge being out of commission for many weeks at a time has not stopped the desperate from finding a way cross country to Kitale, however, and our emergency assistance leading to a longer-term relationship with these families continues. We are working to provide shelter, food and education to the displaced and to help them return to their original homes and villages eventually. The excess rain and mud also affects the conditions on the street and so our social workers are keeping an eye on who may need extra medical care with sleeping in damp conditions. Even wheeling the mobile school out is challenging, but we are usually able to get it out for a couple of hours each morning (through the mud) before the rain starts for the day.

On a positive note, the rain will hopefully ensure that the next harvest is a good one, which will benefit the region and Kenya. It will especially help the families in our bio-agriculture programmes to get good yields that can provide food for the children and potentially for sale to bring in much needed income for school resources and other basic items.

Thank you again for all your support of Child Rescue Kenya’s work.

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Apr 9, 2018
Using our Mobile School

By Su Corcoran | Fundraiser

Feb 26, 2018
Getting to School

By Theresa Heasman | Project Leader

One-to-one session at Street Smart

It is hard to believe we are already two months into a new year. January is our busiest time of the year at Child Rescue Kenya as it marks the beginning of the new school year in addition to the new vocational training/apprenticeship courses.

Children who attended Street Smart in the last quarter of 2017 were, largely, reintegrated to home and families by the end of December. Some children were reintegrated directly home from Street Smart (five in January) and others spent some time at our short-term transitional care centre in Birunda first. Every effort was made to have children in settled environments by the time school started in the first week of January in order that they would start at the beginning of term to make transition easier for them. This was made even more difficult due to larger numbers of children on the streets during November and December due to the long school holidays. In Kenya, the ‘long’ holiday is November and December. During this time, if there is little at home, it is more likely that children will gravitate to the streets.

Our staff were kept busy visiting schools, preparing families, children and teachers for the new arrivals in addition to buying uniforms and schools. Once children progress home from Street Smart, it is vital that we maintain contact and continue to provide family support to ensure those children are adequately provided for in the home and have everything they require to attend school.

We monitor and follow up every child who is reintegrated. We provide family support where this is needed. This may be providing short-term needs such as food baskets in some cases but, more importantly, we focus on the long term. We also provide family counseling, business skills training and grants, bio-intensive farming training and set-up to ensure that poverty in the home is alleviated in a sustainable manner. And, above all, we ensure that young people rescued from the streets of Kitale are given the opportunity to benefit from the education system.

Children from age 4 to 18 come to Street Smart. Some have had some education, some none, some have done well in school. All are assessed, given the opportunity of attending non-formal education classes at Street Smart, and they are encouraged to return to school or vocational training.

The streets of Kitale had significantly fewer children eking out an existence during January thanks to concerted efforts to get children into school. However, we are starting to see new arrivals and, thanks to your support, we hope that those children can be helped and encouraged to join schools after this week’s mid-term break.

In our next report, we hope to tell you all about our other exciting education development. A mobile school! This will be launched in March and we hope this will prove a valuable tool to encourage children to learn in a fun way.

Until then, all the best!

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