Loma (name changed to protect child’s identity) was born in Addis Ababa and is 12 years old. He used to live with his mother and younger brother; his father had mental health issues and is not around.
Urbanisation led to their home in the city being demolished, and with nowhere else to go, his mother was forced to raise her two children on the streets. That is where Loma lived with his mother, until he was 12 years. He could never go to school because the family was always moving from place to place.
His mother washed clothes for money. One day she didn’t return from work, and after searching for her for hours, Loma couldn’t remember the way back to their plastic tent. The police found him wandering around and referred him to a government-owned rehabilitation centre for boys. After almost six months, social workers decided to reintegrate him with his mother, but when they looked for her in the places where she might be, they learned that she had passed away. Loma went through the unbearably painful experience of hearing about her death, standing right there in front of the people telling the social workers about it.
Back at the centre, Loma cried all night. He decided to run away, and after waiting for the perfect moment, escaped from the compound and went back to the streets. But things didn’t go well. He was sexually abused multiple times and as a result developed double incontinence. People avoided him: he had no friends and no one talked to him. He started smoking cigarettes and sniffing glue.
That was when the Retrak outreach team found him. Loma had given up expecting anyone to even approach him, let alone care for him. At the Canaan Lighthouse in Addis Ababa he was offered appropriate treatment and psychological support, and just a few months later is now free from his addictions and incontinence issues. Loma is continuing to make progress, and works as a shoeshine boy in his spare time which means he has been able to save some money.
When Loma joined our centre he couldn’t recognise words and numbers because he hadn’t even completed grade one at school. The teachers assessed him and provided him with an individualized learning program. Now he performs well in subjects like Amharic (one of the main languages in Ethiopia), English, Science and Mathematics, and his hard work has shown dramatic change, far above the grade level he would be at if he was at school. Loma is very keen to learn – in class, he is focused and listens attentively to his teachers. He is also a good story-teller because he loves to read.
Loma is a student who motivates other children as well as the teachers. His eagerness to learn, coupled with the teachers’ support, has helped him to become one of the most competent students in the class, repeatedly being selected as ‘Star of the Week’.
In 2018 (to date), in Ethiopia, Retrak provided shelter in its Lighthouses to 591 children (228 girls and 363 boys), providing them with a safe place to rebuild their lives and start the journey back to family-based care. The work Retrak does is life-changing for children and families and we cannot do this without your generous support. Thank you for supporting our project in Ethiopia which helps us to work with more children like Loma!
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Fozia, a 13 year old girl who came to Retrak after spending months separated from her family. She was born and raised in a rural community in the Oromia region. Her mother passed away when Fozia was very young and her father remarried another woman. As they were not getting along with her stepmother, her father sent Fozia and three of her siblings to live with their grandparents.
While she was staying with her grandparents, she attended school and had a good life with her siblings. But one day, when she was in the fourth grade, her father came to visit her. He told her that she was wasting her time there and that she should go to the city to find work and earn money. He deceived her into thinking that she could become very rich if she became a domestic worker in Addis Ababa. Fozia, inevitably, fell prey to her father’s lies. She moved to Addis Ababa where she became employed as a domestic worker. Her employer did not treat Fozia well, abusing her emotionally and physically. She did not give her sufficient food or provide care for her. “It was very hard, my employer was very cruel” she said. She was not only new to the environment but also, could not speak Amharic, the national language spoken widely in Addis Ababa but not in her home community. For these reasons Fozia stayed with her employer and did not try to reach out for help. One day, Fozia was accused of breaking a pot which she was not responsible for doing. Her employer threw her out on the streets and threw her clothes off the first floor window onto the streets. Confused and humiliated, Fozia started wandering around the streets of Addis. A woman selling goods on the streets found her and talked to her through a translator. After explaining her situation, the stranger took her to the police where she was then transferred to Kechene, a government institution. After assessing her information, they sent her to Retrak so she could reintegrate with her family.
At her stay in Retrak, she was one of the most disciplined, cooperative and respectful girls in the center. She received life skills, catch up education and the psychosocial support provided by Retrak. This enabled her to recall her education and advance in her studies. Retrak’s project officers traced her family and after months of separation, she was then reunified with her grandparents. Her grandparents were overjoyed to see her as they thought she had been lost forever! Fozia is now happily living with her grandparents and siblings where she is currently enrolled in and attending school.
In 2017, in Ethiopia, Retrak provided shelter in the centers to over 450 children, providing them with a safe place to rebuild their lives and start the journey back to family-based care. The work Retrak does is life-changing for children and families and we cannot do this without your generous support. Thank you for supporting our project in Ethiopia which helps us to work with more children like Fozia!
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#InternationalYouthWeek is just around the corner! This annual celebration of young people aims to bring their achievements to the forefront, showcasing the role of young people as partners in change. It also doubles as an opportunity to raise awareness of the challenges faced by the youth of the world.
Starting at 9:00am EDT on Monday, August 7th, and running until 11:59pm EDT on International Youth Day, Saturday, August 12th, donations to Retrak are being matched dollar for dollar on GlobalGiving!
By supporting Retrak during #InternationalYouthWeek, you will be helping young people just like Absolom:
Absolom left home when his parents separated and his mother could no longer fend for them. Wishing to pursue his education, he travelled to Kampala city in hope of finding work so that he would be able to go back to school. Unfortunately, life in the city was not at all what he expected. Absolom joined the Tigers Club Project (Retrak Uganda) after living on the street for more than one year, over the course of which he experienced much suffering. While at the drop-in centre, Absolom was able to access catch-up education. Following his reintegration into a family environment, he completed secondary school and enrolled at Ssesse Farm School for a two year certificate course in tropical agriculture, before studying animal production and management of Busitema University. Thanks to his hard work and resolve, Absolom eventually became self-employed, something he had never expected to be possible. Now, Absolom is an officer in the Ugandan Police Force. He says that he was inspired to join the Force because of the way that it guides people and helps to keep society in order. Most importantly, however, Absolom saw this as an opportunity to show young people that their circumstances can change for the better, and to help them along this path to a better life.
“I would like to thank Retrak in a very special way for all the support extended to me, to see that I am now a serving police officer in this country; and I request that Retrak continue to provide this kind of support for other young people of this nation who are still trapped in street life, so that they too can find an opportunity to come out of a life of hopelessness in crime and find a better future, full of hope and productivity. Long live Retrak, God bless you.”
Please donate to Retrak this #InternationalYouthWeek!
Don’t forget to share the event with your friends and family, letting them know why supporting Retrak’s work with street children in Africa is so important to you!
Thank you for being a part of our success! We couldn't do it without you. Please know it is making a real difference in the lives of these children.
To stay up-to-date and engaged with Retrak’s #InternationalYouthWeek Campaign, connect with us on:
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Here at Retrak, we strive to return each child to a safe and caring family environment.
One morning, while one of our Ethiopia outreach teams was at work in Autobus Tera, they encountered 12 year-old Tewodros. The young boy was sitting on a stone, shivering in the downpour with only a thin piece of shirt covering him. The team talked to Tewodros and invited him back to the Addis Transitional Centre (ATC) with them. There, they provided him with new clothing and assigned him to Yoseph, a counsellor.
Due to the combined effects of economic hardship in his home and peer pressure, Tewodros left his family when he was only 8-years-old. As his home was quite far away from Addis Ababa, it took him a long time to make it to the streets of the capital, begging drivers for assistance along the way. He spent four years on the streets and suffered all sorts of abuse. In addition to the challenges that he experienced so early in life, Tewodros shared with Yoseph that he was addicted to smoking cigarettes, had a very short attention span, and had difficulty coherently articulating his thoughts. Fortunately, after 8 weeks of intervention and support, Tewodros was declared fit to return home. With Yoseph's help, he not only overcame his addiction, but also greatly improved his communication – he became a confident boy.
Reuniting Tewodros with his family was no easy task, as after years living on the streets of Addis Ababa, he had forgotten the location of his house. Fortunately, on the way there, our team met someone who showed them the way. When they reached Tewodros' home, they came upon his grandparents. Understandably, they appeared shaken to the core at the sight of their long missing grandson. The grandfather never said a word though his wonder was clear as he took Tewodros by the hand, led him outside and proceeded to look at him from every angle as though he we were from another planet. His grandparents, like the many neighbours who had gathered at Tewodros' arrival, had been convinced that he had died following his disappearance all of those years ago.
Tewordros' grandparents informed our team that following his disappearance, Tewodros’ mother had become mentally ill, requiring treatment at a psychiatric hospital. After months of treatment, she had recovered enough to go live with Tewodros' father in Addis Ababa. Once Tewodros' grandparents called her to inform her of her child's return, she travelled back immediately. Though our team left before she was reunited with her son, she later called the ATC and thanked each and every one of our staff members for helping her son and bringing him home.
Tewodros was an ordinary boy who fell victim to circumstance and ended up struggling to survive on the streets until Retrak intervened and helped him to return home. Thank you for being a part of our success! We couldn't do it without you. Please know it is making a real difference in the lives of these children.
Eyasu is a 16-year-old Ethiopian boy. He left home because of family hardship and peer pressure and ended up on the streets of Addis Ababa. During his time on the street, Eyasu encountered many challenges including lack of food, shelter, personal hygiene facilities and physical and sexual abuse.
After living on the street for about a month, Eyasu was found by Retrak outreach workers, who invited him to one of Retrak's transition centers. While there, Eyasu received services such as shelter, food, recreational and personal hygiene facilities, counseling, life skills and catch-up education classes.
It was during a one-on-one counseling session that Eyasu revealed his problem to his counselor: he was scared that as a result of his sexual abuse he had contracted HIV.
Eyasu thought that if he was infected, he could not go home as he would be a burden to his family. He kept saying "I am hopeless and worthless." The counselor began working on building his self-esteem by taking time with him, telling him that he did not contribute to the abuse and helping him to visit the Retrak nurse to get further counseling and education on HIV. After repeated sessions and discussions, Eyasu started to show an interest in being tested for HIV.
Following Eyasu's test results, he decided to be reintegrated with his family and to continue his education. He has been attending school regularly and has been promoted to the 9th grade by scoring 97% on the National Exam.
Now, Eyasu is emotionally and physically strong. He's helping his parents by conducting gardening activities and making money by repairing electronic equipment on the weekends.
Your donations to Retrak have made it possible for children like Eyasu to embrace the New Year with hope for a better future. We here at Retrak want to thank you for your past support and urge you to continue supporting Retrak through the coming year and we reach out to more and more children like Eyasu.
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If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you will get an e-mail when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports via e-mail without donating.
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