Life on the streets

DURING the past year, Tanzanian street children project FISCH has re-homed 20 children. They've got around 110 more to go.

In and around the Southern Highland town of Iringa alone, with a population of 110,000 there are hundreds of homeless and vulnerably housed children, the estimated total standing at around 5,000.

Future For Iringa Street Children, or FISCH, was set up last September by concerned local vicars and UK Christian volunteers who donated time and money towards a holistic programme of rehabilitation after witnessing the disturbing problem first hand.

Including weekly meals, counselling, overnight stop-overs and financial help, FISCH aims for a non-judgemental approach in returning children to their homes and will only carry this out if both parent and child are agreed.

As well as fighting for the rights of street children, they are also faced with a new and rapidly increasing problem of hidden homelessness - young children being taken into homes to work as housemaids and houseboys who are exploited after they have tried to escape lives of poverty. Charity director and vicar for the regional diocese Mote Mogomba says more and more children are being orphaned as families breakdown because of AIDS and HIV, increasing divorce rates and a disappearance of the traditional community.

"Mostly, the children we work with are boys, because girls are snapped up as soon as they're seen on the streets, either into prostitution or as housegirls. They can travel a long way from villages, trying to seek a future after perhaps they've lost both parents, have been ill-treated or have no money. Around 75 per cent of these children are not safe. They are exploited financially, sexually and mentally," he says.

"It's become acceptable to have a house girl or a house boy now. The exploitation isn't viewed as acceptable, but much of it goes on behind closed doors."

Children can be as young as 12 when they begin work, fresh from leaving primary school. At the price of losing their job, they may be forced into sex with older male or female household members, given basic food to eat alone, a bad wage and deprived of decent health care.

"Life in the villages is becoming harder and harder. The old pattern of marriage and family is disintegrating. In the past, divorce and separation were almost unheard of. Now, husbands and wives are leaving home to try and find work in the towns," says Mote.

Eric Shila had already been on the street for three years when FISCH took him in at the age of 13. He had decided to try and find his dad who had left him and his mother to find work in a town. He hid in the boot of a bus to get there but never completed the long journey and instead ended up halfway in Iringa and stayed. Eric never got to see his dad, who had in fact died, but after a long period of counselling and negotiation, FISCH located his mother and he agreed to try living back home. He's now at school and is receiving monthly follow-up checks from the charity. The small team began work by travelling Iringa at night to find where children were sleeping.

"We realised we couldn't just start asking them questions, so my wife and I began by walking around with a thermos flask and food as a means of approaching them. We gradually got to know who was who and who stayed where," says Mote. After daily free-house counselling in the morning for relatives or children, Mote carries out reconnaissance missions in town, asking the boys for any information about new street children or any incidents that may have taken place. A Saturday morning club acts as a weekly meeting point where the boys are counted and checked, receive a healthy meal, play football and have a private chat if needed. Numbers can vary each week and new children are always noted. All of them have Mote's and another leader's mobile number in case of emergency. Kevin Luka is Saturday Club leader and says it's not uncommon for the boys to come to him with medical worries, concerns about alcohol and drugs or rape.

"Sometimes the boys will sleep with men and women for money but we've also heard stories of them being raped or attacked by gangs. We try to help the police find the perpetrators when this happens. They are very easily lead because they're so young."

Not all children are on the street 24/7. Some will stay with elderly relatives who cannot care for them sufficiently and send them out to beg during the day. Others may not be encouraged to beg but are not stopped either, since the child will always bring something home.

Abilai Mohamed, 14, comes to the Saturday Club every week and was on the streets for three years before FISCH offered him support to live with a neighbour.

"My mum and dad died and I lived with a stepmother, but she beat me a lot and sometimes she didn't give me any food, so I left. I didn't feel okay on the street. I quit school, I missed my parents and some days I'd go without food. I was doing temporary work in town, anywhere I could.

"Now I'm in school and FISCH is giving me monthly food parcels and money for a uniform and textbooks. Before I left the streets, I warned younger children not to do the same as I did. It's dangerous," he says.

Eight-year-old Tino Mudete still sleeps at home occasionally, but isn't happy to return very often in case his father is drunk.

"Sometimes he beats my mother, so I prefer life on the street," he says. "I can get money and I don't miss my parents. Life is cool. I haven't been to school, but I'd like to. I want to be a vet. I don't want to be here forever."

Hamis Mugata, 13, has also been victim to drunken beatings.

"I lived with my auntie after my mother died of HIV and I never knew my father. One day, I sold some of her plates and crockery because I really needed the money. She went crazy and beat me. She later forgave me but by that time I wanted to run away," he says. "My uncle is a drunk man and used to come home, use bad words and hit me. FISCH has helped me back home three times now, but something always goes wrong and I end up running away again. I'd like to stay. I go for ages without washing. You have to go to toilet in the woods because people tell you you're too dirty to use theirs."

FISCH has plans to create a drop-in centre so the boys can sleep somewhere safe. At the moment, leaders put forward their own houses so space is limited.

"We haven't been able to expand yet, because we haven't had a big injection of money," says Mote. "But hopefully, by holding seminars and spreading the word, we can get more and more people to join us and say, 'enough is enough.'"

To find out more about FISCH or to donate, visit www.grassroots.org.uk or email fisch@grassroots.org.uk

Pictures and report by Laura Male