On the streets of Nairobi, sixty thousand children wander in search of food or work. They spend their nights huddled together, exposed to the elements, endemic violence and corruption, deprived and overlooked.
Joshua*, a ten-year-old boy wakes up cold and hungry in the early hours of the morning inside a large plastic bag that serves as a sleeping bag. He has been living on the streets for the last nine months since his mother died. Other street children surround him, they begin to rise and search the nearest garbage bins for something to eat. Some of them have run away from their homes to escape abuse or have been abandoned by their families, and some simply have nowhere else to go.
Joshua takes his plastic bag and the folded piece of cardboard he sleeps on and starts towards the nearest rubbish dump. Here, he will spend his morning collecting plastic bottles to be exchanged for money. A full bag will earn him enough for a small breakfast. Anything else he eats today will be on the rare charity of passers-by.
Like many of the other children living on the street, Joshua is addicted to sniffing glue. His glue bottle provides him a brief respite from this life of abuse and deprivation. As a young child, he faces the violence of older street children, who are themselves starving and neglected. Some of them, instead of working, will take what they can from the weakest of the children. The existence of anti-loitering laws, means that the police are a persistent source of fear. Children like Joshua face the constant threat of arrest and beatings from officers throughout the day. When he sees them walk by, he tries to shrink into the shadows and look away, he tries to be invisible.
Joshua is shy and he fears strangers. He is afraid of abduction most of all. The vulnerability of young children living on the streets attracts predators. Offers of money or food are made to boys and girls in exchange for sexual favours. This exploitation leaves them exposed to diseases such as HIV/AIDS, unplanned pregnancy and emotional trauma.
The passers-by who don’t ignore Joshua might instead beat him for an imagined misdemeanour or simply because they know that no one will stop them. Though neglected and malnourished, he still has hopes for the future. He wants to be a doctor but having never been to school, at age ten, he can neither read nor write. Many of the older street children have let go of this kind of optimism, having lived on the streets for more than five years; to them, any future they might have tomorrow is contingent on surviving the twenty-four hours before them. Without help, street children like Joshua will stay on the street. Without change, thousands more will follow him.
Here at the Evie Grace Foundation, we collaborate with the Global Hope Rescue and Rehabilitation center, a home for former street boys where they receive food, shelter and an education. Founded by Robert Njoroge in 2013, the center specialises in the needs of street children, transforming their lives through the outreach and support it provides. Global Hope urgently needs to purchase land in order to continue housing its 113 boys, and for the last year, Evie Grace has been fundraising to bring this to fruition.
The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have made the situation even more perilous, and with the increased risk of eviction from the current rented site, we’re doing everything we can to secure the land they so desperately need.
*This account is based on the documented experiences of street children in Nairobi, Kenya.
Sources
- African Population and Health Research Center. (2019). (Rep.). African Population and Health Research Center. doi:10.2307/resrep23879
- Ariella Goldblatt, Zachary Kwena, Maureen Lahiff, Kawango Agot, Alexandra Minnis, Ndola Prata, Jessica Lin, Elizabeth A. Bukusi, Colette L. Auerswald, Prevalence and Correlates of HIV Infection among Street Boys in Kisumu, Kenya, PLOS ONE, 10.1371/journal.pone.0140005, 10, 10, (e0140005), (2015).
- Consortium for Street Children. 2020. The Legal Atlas For Street Children – Consortium For Street Children. [online] Available at: <https://www.streetchildren.org/legal-atlas/map/kenya/> [Accessed 13 August 2020].
- Kenya Children of Hope. 2020. The Street Children Of Nairobi. [online] Available at: <https://kenyachildrenofhope.org/the-street-children-of-nairobi/> [Accessed 13 August 2020].
- Nairobi.go.ke. 2020. County Laws | Nairobi City County. [online] Available at: <https://nairobi.go.ke/county-laws/> [Accessed 13 August 2020].
Image source: canva.com
Written by: Anna Balis
