The Street Kids of Sierra Leone |
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These kids need your helpThere are tens of thousands of street kids in Sierra Leone, over 2000 of them without any family or visible means of support in the capital Freetown alone.
There are a number of reasons why children end up on the streets in one of the poorest countries in the world - some run away because they have been abused, some because they have been passed onto extended families because their parent can’t afford to feed them who then get pressed into domestic slavery whilst others are trafficked from the villages to become street seller or prostitutes from a young as 5 or 6 years old. They all have a story to tell. Usually they fall into the hands of older children or adults called ‘braas’ and ‘sissies’ (brothers and sisters) who have only one reason to befriend a street kid - exploitation. Once in the hands of the ‘braas’ and ‘sissies’ they are expected to work 12-14 hrs day or, more likely, be forced into petty crime, solvent abuse and gang activities. The penalty for non-compliance is often extreme abuse, both physical and sexual. Young street girls are particularly vulnerable and are often picked up from the streets on a promise of a better life and education only to be trafficked to other towns or African countries for the purposes of domestic slavery or prostitution. Our aim is to help lift some of these poor abandoned children out of the inevitable downward spiral by re uniting them with their families before they become too hardened to life on the streets. This is no small task. It will involve us clothing them, feeding them and providing them with an education to help them on their start to a better life. We believe that beyond the daily physical needs, education is the best tool we can give them to help them out of the poverty trap which is the root cause of most of their problems. The Project In 2012 we helped 20 children, aged between 5 - 14 years old. Our objective is to re- home them and not to become an orphanage, so our social worker is employed to trace their backgrounds and re-home them if at all possible. So far all but two of the 20 children rescued in 2012 are now living with extended families or elderly grandparents but still under our care and daily provision of food clothing and education. Most of the children are intelligent, but have some gaps in their learning from working on the streets. The Street project is addressing these problems by offering them 2 hours of extra lessons after their normal school day, between 2-4 pm, a hot meal and then the opportunity to play for an hour before they go to their new homes. Each child has specific needs and difficulties with which the dedicated staff are aware and attempt to address. Callum, is a qualified social worker and Nancy King has long experience working with the disaffected, they are both driven, committed and reliable. See the kids we have helped so far .... click here |