Salesian Institute Street Youth Projects, CapeTown, South Africa
| Cape Town is a very beautiful city but it has many social problems. Like many other developing cities there are hundreds of young people roaming the streets in search of food. For the past fifteen years the Salesian Fathers have concentrated personnel and resources into getting youth off the street, trained and re-integrated into society. This is a very demanding programme but misean cara is happy to be associated with the professionalism, sensitivitity and creativity used to help these young people. |
Children begging on the streets are not a new phenomenon in societies worldwide - they have been around for many centuries. Societies respond in many different ways: in affluent countries the governments have efficient policies to remove them from the streets with all its concomitant dangers, although the efficacy of these programmes is not always evident. Solutions in developing countries become more creative and NGO dependent and there is considerably less input from government sources. In countries such as South Africa where much needed income is linked to the flourishing tourism industry, the authorities' attitude to street children is often perceived as impatient and intolerant. Such governments do not have the funds to offer these children alternative safe accommodation, but see them at the same time as an embarrassment - society's failure to care for the vulnerable.
Cape Town is a beautiful port city at the foot of Africa. It has made a concerted effort to establish itself as a primary tourist destination in South Africa, and while both provincial and city authorities have been squabbling over the best strategy in response to the city centre's rapidly growing street population, the Salesians launched and, over the past fifteen years, refined a practical programme of getting youth off the street, trained and re-integrated into society.
The Salesian Institute's Street Youth Projects provide appropriate education for children from various shelters around the city, give accommodation and skills training to those youth who are over the shelters' age limit, and make contact with long lost families and communities for eventual re-integration. There is a growing success rate and a confidence that the Salesians can provide the love and security so sorely needed by these children.
The Salesian Institute Street Youth Projects:
We accept that building self esteem and restoring the youth's confidence and trust in adults are vital keys to achieving our goals. There are three components of these projects:
1. Learn to Live
The Pathway to Mainstream Education focuses mainly on children who are from the residential shelters or directly from the street, teaching mainly basic numeracy and literacy so that they can slip back into 'normal' schools once their situation has stabilized. There is an ethos of acceptance and tolerance and we strive to teach the social skills which most other children would have learned in their families.
2. Don Bosco Hostel ' School of Life
It is a great achievement for young men who have spent years on the streets to make a decision that changes their lives around and leads them to enter the Hostel for an 18 month residential programme. They insist that the programme be called the School of Life, as they learn skills that help them to become part of life again - life skills as well as job skills. During the first 6 months they learn basic skills such as keeping themselves clean and sleeping in a bed. Depending on their own abilities and interests, they are helped to learn specific job skills in the next 6 months, and the last module focuses on preparing them for their re-integration into society.
Since 1998 about 170 young men have been admitted. About half of them were what we term emergency intakes - referrals from courts or social workers. 31 of the 35 youths who had completed the programme managed to find a job and a place to stay. Nine young men dropped out, and the rest are still in the programme.
3. Sixteen Plus
The government subsidises children in shelters only up to the age of 15, with the result that older youth, 16+, are more often found on the streets. Life is tougher for them in many ways, as there is less public sympathy for the teenagers and young adults on the streets. Our outreach worker makes contact with these youth and patiently wins sufficient trust for them to agree to go on a camp for a whole week. During this period they are given the opportunity to consider their options in life, and those who are prepared to turn their lives around enter the Hostel programme. This process is delicate and unpredictable and requires great insight and acceptance. Without this outreach programme very few if any young people would enter our Hostel.
Challenges:
Our biggest challenge is to raise funds for the Learn to Live project as the Social Services Department do not regard it their responsibility to fund an educational programme. The Salesian Institute is involved in ongoing negotiations with the government to persuade them to fund our programme.
We are acutely aware of the children's need for recreation, especially of the value of music, art and movement as therapy in healing their damaged young lives, in helping them to express their hurt and anger at adults who had let them down, to reach a stage where they can begin the healing process and trust again. We would like to buy the necessary equipment and obtain the services of skilled facilitators to achieve this.
The
funds will also help to feed and clothe the
children - they are given at least one hot meal
a day. Children who attend voluntarily and are
not from a shelter are also given the
opportunity to shower and have breakfast before
their day starts at Learn to Live.
(Report provided by Fr. Pat Naughton SDB, Rector
Salesian Institute, Capetown and Nelly Burrows)