Providing Safe Spaces for Homeless Children

Meet Peter We met him many years ago, when he was just 7 years old. At the time, we found him in the streets of Mombasa, shortly after the death of his mother. Some of his sisters were already surviving on the streets, but he himself had never lived there. He urgently needed safety, stability, and care. Recognizing this, his sisters brought him to Glad’s House and said, “He is very little to be in the streets.” At such a young age, he placed his trust in us total strangers trusting us with his life, education, and upbringing. We enrolled him in Class one, and began walking the long journey with him. Today, he is 19 years old and in Form three. Life has not been easy. His sisters continue to struggle and survive on the streets, and he has lost contact with one of them. Still, during school holidays, he makes a point of visiting one sister in the streets of Mombasa. They talk. He reconnects. And he reminds himself why he must keep going. These moments strengthen his resolve to work hard, complete his education, and one day support and settle his family. This is just one example of what it means to provide safe spaces for children at critical moments in their lives, meeting them where they are, protecting them when they are most vulnerable, and walking with them for as long as it takes. The journey has not been short. It has been 12 years. At times, the progress feels slow. But stories like his remind us why we do this work.