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| One of the many skips Jinja's street-children spend their days looking through for scraps to sell. |
It is tragic that in a world where so many people have so much,
there are still children who are left to fend for themselves. From our comfortable Western society, it is almost impossible
to imagine what life must be like for these vulnerable children who have been left with no other viable option but to live
on the streets. From the street children we have profiled we have been able to get a glimpse of the hard lives they lead,
and as child after child comes to us, it further inspires us to continue in our work to change as many of these children's
lives as possible.
When asked what the worst thing about street life is, the answer from the children is almost always
universal: the nights. If you were to walk through the streets of Jinja after dark you would see the pavements crowded with
children, exposed to the elements, with nothing more than plastic sheets to cover them. Despite Uganda's balmy climate, its
nights are cold, and bring with them countless mosquitoes and the added threat of malaria, a disease that kills thousands
of people a year in Uganda. For the children who have to try to cope with this, deep sleep is impossible. The nights are filled
with danger, and fitful dozing is the best they can manage as they try to keep alert to the night-time movements around them.
For with the darkness comes abuse, in all of its most horrific forms. Verbally, they are told they are worthless, no better
than the vermin they share the streets with. Physically, they are beaten by anyone who has the inclination to do so; drunks,
the authorities, or just someone having a bad day. And then there are the men who roam the streets looking for children to
sexually abuse, their dark acts robbing the children who cross their path of any innocence or hope they might have still had.
Against all of this, the children living on the streets have no protection. The authorities whose duty it is to bring security
and safety are often the perpetrators themselves, and they bring their sticks and threats as they round up children to lock
away in the cells each night. Here they are crammed into tiny rooms with the same adults they have so been desperately trying
to escape from on the streets. Here, there really is nowhere to run.
The days bring no rest either, as each child's
struggle for food begins once again. Imagine always being hungry. Even when you do get a little food it's never quite enough,
and you're already thinking of where your next meal is going to come from. Some days a child might be lucky, and a passer-by
will hand them some left-over food or a little money. But these days are far and few between, and the children are usually
forced to survive by their own industry, no matter how young they are. They can be seen picking through the rubbish for food,
or for plastic bottles or scrap metal to sell. But after all of their hard work and searching, half a dozen plastic bottles
will only get them 3.4p. Hardly enough to live on.
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| Robert searching through the rubbish for something to sell. |
Sadly, life on the street often brings with it temptation. Many of the children
turn to alcohol, drugs, or petrol sniffing; anything to numb their minds from the misery they face everyday in their struggle
to survive. Inevitably, these habits need to be funded, and some children begin to steal in order to finance them. If people
already treat you like a criminal for sleeping on the street, what is to stop you from becoming one?
In Jinja, there
are already some organisations who work with street children, but they simply don't have enough resources to take them off
the streets. The most they can usually offer is to provide them with a little food and a place to have an occasional wash.
Some children are lucky enough to get day-school fees, but this often means having to return to relatives who abuse them.
And so, despite their desperate desire for an education, many children will return to the street rather than getting caught
up in this cycle of abuse once again.
That is why S.A.L.V.E. International aims to provide a comprehensive sponsorship
scheme that will get these children off the streets and back into education. Not only that, but S.A.L.V.E. will provide support,
counselling, and guidance for each and every child on our program as they face the challenges of adjusting to life off the
street. Many of these children have never been shown any form of love, and we want to change that. With the help of caring,
loving foster families, and a supportive school environment, we want to at last give them hope. Our aim for the future is
that the children we help now will one day be able to help others, allowing our work to touch the lives of hundreds of children
still to come.
Types of Street Child in Jinja
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| A Jinja backstreet. |
We have been able to identify four main types of street children in Jinja, Uganda.
1. Orphaned children who have no-one to support them.
2. Children who can't deal with their life circumstances i.e. children who are being abused at home and run away.
3. Children with poor family circumstances i.e. their family is too poor to be able to give them food or school fees so
they wander the streets during the day but often go home at night.
4. Children who go to live on the street due to peer pressure.
At S.A.L.V.E. International we are willing to consider children of any ethnicity or background for our sponsorship program.
Once we have ascertained from the interview process that they need our help, we ask a few things from the child. They must
prove that they are living on the streets, that they are clean from drink and drugs, they must be keen to return to school,
and finally, that they are prepared to abide by the rules of our program.
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