Drop In Centre offers a beacon of hope for street children
By Angela Osborne
Stabroek News
May 2, 2004
"Auntie, please fuh a twenty dollah, nuh?"
"Uncle, please fuh a hundred dollah nuh? Ah wan buy someting fuh eat." The children who approach with these pleas are not related to the people they are begging. They are street children. A relatively new phenomenon in Guyana, they hang around outside downtown fast-food outlets and supermarkets - barefooted, unkempt, smelly.
At night, they loiter outside night clubs and bars sometimes until the wee hours. Then they retire to their cardboard beds on the city's pavements, exhausted and hungry, or full, depending not only on whether luck smiled on them, but also whether they were physically strong enough to hang on to what they had gleaned. For some, the hours of rest are few, as they must rise early if they are blocking store entrances, or want to secure odd jobs at the city's markets or with cart men.
In an interview with the Government Information Agency last month, Chief Probation Officer in the Ministry of Human Services, Ann Green, had put the number of street children at no more than 30. The majority of these children are boys, who have run away from home for any of a number of reasons, or who were driven out into the streets. But the ones who remain on the street are there mostly by choice. For those who want to change what must be a miserable existence, the Drop In Centre For Street Children is a beacon of hope.
Situated in a small two-storey building at Hadfield Street, Georgetown, the Drop In Centre is a Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security-administered programme. Coordinator Aggrey Azore and Probation and Family Welfare Officer Jacqueline Wilson who run the centre spoke to Sunday Stabroek about their efforts to turn these boys' lives around.
The centre was established on June 1, 1999, in a building at the back of the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, Main Street, under the auspices of UNICEF. It later moved to its current location and introduced its shelter component about two years ago.
True to its name, children are dropped off there by people who find them on the streets, or by the Schools' Welfare Department (SWD), which is attached to the Ministry of Education. Some children drop in of their own accord.
"We have campaigns to encourage children [to want to stay off the streets]. We visit the haunts and hideouts where the children frequent," Azore said. "In visiting these hideouts, the centre operates in collaboration with Children's Services within the Human Services Ministry, the City Constabulary [for security reasons] and the SWD."
Some of the places where street children are found are Bourda Market (the eastern section); Wellington and Regent Streets (where there once was an abandoned building); the Lodge Hall on Wellington Street; Astor Cinema; outside Austin's Bookstore in Church Street; Charlotte and Wellington Streets; outside Popeye's, Pizza Plus, Demico House and Campsite fast-food restaurants; outside Tennessee or C&S nightclubs; Stabroek Market and any other place where they believe they can earn a pittance.
The children engage in begging, petty stealing and child labour, and even undergo sexual and physical abuse at the hands of adult men and their peers. Azore said: "Some children are even involved in drugs; they are influenced by their peers to use them, or else by adults who see them as a lucrative asset in the business of trafficking.
"These children are robbed by persons who employ them to do jobs and even their own peers. One child came to the centre with broken limbs after he refused to give another child the money he had earned." He said the children are involved in all the vices on the streets.
Wilson said that what street children needed was to feel loved. "Children leave home for various reasons, the main one being the 'stepfather' issue. Other reasons are the fact that there is never enough for them [food, clothes], a lack of parental guidance or the homes are dysfunctional."
She cited one case: "There was an eight-year-old boy, who said he was not going back home, unless his mother left her Rasta man."
And in another case, she said that two boys were charged with truancy and sent to the New Opportunity Corps, because they had a problem with the mother's reputed husband. But this one had a happy ending. She said that eventually, in order to get the boys to go back home, the mother told her lover he had to go, because her children were more important to her than him.
The centre provides counselling for both the children and their parents, singly and together.
"Most of these homes are single-parent homes, where the father provides nothing for the child, forcing the mother to take a job. Most mothers are under-educated, so they end up doing guard services, which entails them working at least 12 hours a day, six days per week," said Wilson. This, she said, leaves the children unattended and they feel they have a right to do whatever they want.
Wilson, who has more contact with parents, relatives or next of kin, said the popular excuse given by the guardians is that the child has left home because he is disobedient.
"Mothers need to understand what is more important - their children or their man. Likewise, the children need to understand that their mothers have to have a life too," Wilson said.
The centre
The centre provides a 24-hour service. Azore and Wilson work full time Monday to Friday. At weekends, they alternate days off so that one of them is there on Saturday and the other on Sunday. The centre also has two night staff and a cleaner.
Upon arrival, each child is given a bath, clean clothes, meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks) and a bed in which to sleep. The children are also given clothes to wear on special occasions, as they are required to attend church on Sundays and are also taken on tours.
The centre caters not only to the children's physical needs, but sees to their social needs also.
"The aim of the programme is to teach them to build their self-esteem. They have to be convinced that they all have potential, self-worth, ambition. We try to condition them to understand the nicer side of life. They are also given academic and vocational teaching to make them independent, so that they can take their rightful place in life," said Azore and Wilson, echoing each other. "They need to stop depending [on] begging [from] people to survive."
A number of volunteers visit the centre daily to assist in teaching the children the basics - reading, mathematics, grammar, language arts, health education, science, and social studies. The children also have a garden where they practise the practical aspects of agricultural science. This also helps to provide food for the centre. A number of other organisations assist with the children's moral and spiritual upliftment. They are taught basic etiquette, how to appreciate others and to follow rules.
"They learn a sense of identity and how to set goals - short, mid and long term - the main goal being that the child must attend school," said Azore.
The children are also taken to the Colgrain swimming pool.
The centre takes responsibility for getting the children settled; this includes finding their parents and establishing what, if any, schooling they would have had. In the event that the child is an orphan, the next of kin is sought. "With the help of the Schools' Welfare Department, we are able to trace someone who knows the child and we get the relevant documents allowing them to go to school," Azore said.
At present, the youngest child at the centre is just over five years old and the oldest is 17. The 17-year-old has been there for two months and has just started going back to school.
Within the last two years, there have been approximately five girls who went to the centre but at present, there are only boys.
"We try to link them to their relatives as soon as possible or they move on the Mahaica Children's Home," said Azore. "There was one case of two sisters and a brother, who eventually went to their grandmother because their mom couldn't afford to maintain them," he said.
At the moment, there are ten children in the day and night routine. There are another ten children who visit occasionally.
Over the past two years, 16 children have gone back home and 18 have gone back to school; 14 of these are still in school. There are cases where the children return to the streets, due to the influence of their peers, or where the situation at home does not change.
Making an impact
Both Azore and Wilson believe the programme at the Drop In Centre is making an impact because the counsellors there understand the children, empathise with them, talk their language (road talk) and get them to see the bigger picture. "All these children need is love and attention; once you lead, they will follow," they said.
Azore added, "It is a great thing to see the children go on outings, how they interact with people. They feel proud to be accepted as normal children they are no longer under the stigma 'street children.' We also get the opportunity to test their social skills, their mannerisms and how they relate to people in general."
The main source of finance for the centre is the ministry, which is responsible for its administration. Additional funding also comes from non-governmental agencies, the business community and interested citizens.
Sidebar
Some causes of the street-child phenomenon
1. Lack of parental guidance and counselling
2. Child neglect and deprivation
3. Physical abuse
4. Emotional and psychological abuse
5. Death of one or both parents
6. Migration of parents
7. Lack of adequate financial means to support the home
9. Influence of an older sibling to become deviant
10. Family feud
11. Bullying of child by siblings
12. Unfair amount of work to be done by child
13. Lured by the get-rich-quick syndrome of getting money by begging and doing odd jobs, as well as stealing and becoming involved in selling drugs
14. Lack of motivation in school due to poor performance and/or poor teacher/child, child/child relationships
15. Sexual molestation of children (both boys and girls) by male adults offering them money and material things in return
16. Parents sending them onto the streets to beg and earn money by other means to sustain them
17. Homelessness of family due to lack of housing
18. Catastrophic illness of the breadwinner of the family
19. Children left to be cared for by ailing grandparents
20. Instability of child, moving from one parent to the other (parents living apart - dysfunctional family)
Some negative consequences of being
a street child
* Sexual molestation by men
* Sexual molestation by other street children
* Having to perform unreasonable favours for the bully
* Fights resulting in injury
* Theft of their money and belongings by other children and adults
* Having to do odd jobs and being robbed and cheated by their employers
* Loss of self-esteem and human dignity
* Loss of self-respect and respect of members of the community
* Lack of schooling resulting in poor literacy and numeracy skills
* Lack of instruction in social etiquette and moral upbringing
* Absence of guidance as their peers and others on the street cannot adequately provide same
* Adoption of survival of the fittest mentality and lack of human kindness
* Becoming involved in drug use and abuse as well as trafficking
* Involvement in stealing
* Sleeping in insanitary and unhealthy conditions on the street and at their haunts and hideouts
* Poor interpersonal skills due to inadequate training and exposure
* Loss of childhood