The forgotten children
Behind the glitz of the preparations for the World Cup, homeless, orphaned kids are being rounded up by police and dumped out of sight. We meet the British women helping to give them a future
By Laura Millar, 30/05/2010
Under the glare of the midday sun, workers are busy putting the finishing touches to the new state-of-the-art football stadium.
In just two weeks, tens of thousands of fans will descend on the city of Durban in South Africa for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
But all the pomp and ceremony linked to the games can't gloss over the ugly truth: that South Africa has millions of AIDS orphans - many of them homeless, begging for food and addicted to sniffing glue.
Children like eight-year-old orphan Moeketsi*, whose parents both died from AIDS three years ago. For him, every day is a struggle for survival as he tries to avoid the violent gangs, child traffickers and rapists who prowl the streets.
Lucy with one of the children she's helpedAnd recently, Moeketsi - and children like him - have faced another, greater fear. The police.
Over the past few months, unmarked vans - driven by the Durban Municipal Police - have patrolled the streets. Their aim? To round up homeless street kids and dump them outside the city boundaries, away from the media spotlight and the holiday-happy football fans, and also from the only hope they have of getting help.
It's been reported that homeless children have been rounded up using tear gas, sometimes beaten, then driven away. And it's British charities who are trying to raise awareness of the practice as they work to support these desperate youngsters who have nothing and no one.
The deprivation is hard to describe
Former PA Lucy Caslon, 28, founded UK-based charity Msizi Africa in 2007. For the past year, she's been working with Durban charity Umthombo, a street-shelter project for homeless children.
"It seems the authorities don't want anything to get in the way of the country's positive image during the World Cup," Lucy says. "I heard of one 17 year old who ran into the path of a car trying to escape being herded into a police van. He was killed instantly. It's heart-breaking."
According to United Nations statistics on HIV, there are 3 million AIDS orphans in South Africa. Many of them have become 'street kids' - children who are homeless and sleep on pavements or in doorways. In Durban, one of the World Cup centres, there are hundreds of them, and thousands more kids who beg on the streets during the day, but have a home to go to at night.
Alice at a community project in Soweto"I first became aware of the horrors facing some of South Africa's homeless children when I visited Durban last year," says Lucy, who had previously spent time working at an orphanage in neighbouring Lesotho.
"The first time I came here to visit the street shelter, I can't explain how shocked I was. The kids were malnourished, high on glue to dull their hunger pangs and living in fear of being attacked by gangs. Unless you see it for yourself, the sheer deprivation of the place is hard to describe.
"It seemed that the authorities had washed their hands of the kids. I knew I had to help."
Since founding the charity, Msizi, which means 'helper' in Zulu, Lucy has raised more than �300,000. In 2008, she won a year's sponsorship from The Vodafone Foundation's World Of Difference Programme, enabling her to commit � to fund-raising for the charity full-time. She estimates it costs just �5 to feed one child for a month - while a full-price World Cup final ticket costs up to �630.
The new World Cup stadium in DurbanTogether with Umthombo, Lucy has helped to provide three meals a day for hundreds of the city's homeless children.
She hopes that the promise of a good meal will bring the children to the Umthombo street child shelter, called Safe Space. As well as food supplied by Msizi, the kids can get support and rehabilitation from the shelter's staff, many of whom are former street children themselves. They're offered information about safe housing and education, plus access to counsellors who can give advice on living with HIV.
"The offer of food brings the kids into the shelter and once they're there, they start interacting with the workers," Lucy says. "Providing meals for them is a tiny part of getting them off the streets, but it's so important that they eat properly, especially as so many of them are HIV-positive. A healthy diet boosts their immune system, helps their HIV medicine work effectively and enables them to put on weight."
With no parents and no help from the Government, charities like these are the street kids' only lifeline.
Rescued children have the promise of a futureOnce children have taken that important first step by seeking support, they're helped to live a safer life.
"We try to engage with the children to help them stay off the streets during the day and to deal with their glue addiction," says Umthombo founder Tom Hewitt. "We have programmes of surfing and football lessons to give the kids something to do, and they have access to social workers.
"Our ultimate aim is to get them back living within their communities, with any extended family or in older-child-headed households that our carers can supervise. But there is a long way to go."
Once the children have managed to secure safe housing, they are then encouraged to return to school in order to try to escape the poverty trap for good.
Football fever is everywhere but at what cost?Unfortunately, preparations for the World Cup have started to have an adverse effect on the education on offer, too. In one province, two schools have reportedly been knocked down to make way for a new football stadium, leaving kids in make-shift classrooms.
Lucy admits the task can seem daunting, but insists she can see a real difference being made to these children's lives.
"Because the children are eating well, they get bigger and stronger, their eyes are brighter, their skin is clearer and they don't come down with colds or coughs as often," she says. "And with charity support workers helping them, they manage to stop sniffing glue too.
"It's fantastic to see them running around and playing, just being little kids again.
"Life on the streets can harden them, but deep down all these children really want is love."
'These kids deserve a chance'
Alice is helping to make a differenceCommunity fund-raiser Alice Gilkes, 29, from London, has been working for the Starfish Greathearts Foundation for two years. She flies out to visit projects in South Africa once a year. She says:
"Although I was aware of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, nothing could have prepared me for the reality when I visited.
Orphans are surviving in dire poverty. Many have no relatives and are living in basic shacks, often without running water. After the death of a parent, it falls to the eldest child to care for their siblings. Too young to work, they take to the streets to beg for money or food. It's such a desperate existence.
The charity I work for was set up in 2001, by two South Africans living in London, to improve these children's lives. We employ local workers who find foster families, and identify kids whose parents are sick to make sure they're cared for.
I recently met a girl called Sindi*, who was nine and had lost both her parents to AIDS-related illnesses. She had been looking after her two younger sisters, begging to feed them and herself. A neighbour spotted her one morning and told one of our workers. Sindi and her sisters were taken into the charity's care, while other workers tried to find them a foster family. With the charity's help, Sindi is back in school while her sisters are cared for at home by their new foster mum. In just a few months, she's transformed from a scrawny, scared child into a bright-eyed girl enjoying school.
The charity doesn't just find the children new families - it funds projects to ensure they have access to education, books, uniforms and stationery. Since Starfish was set up, it's helped over 36,000 children to avoid a future on the streets. With good diets, an education and a safe place to sleep, these innocent victims can achieve their dreams."
South Africa facts and figures
- There are homeless street kids living in all the three main cities of South Africa - Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg.
- Figures suggest there are now 3 million orphans as a result of AIDS in South Africa**.
- An estimated 5.7 million South Africans are living with HIV**.
- Child trafficking in South Africa is rife - 1,700 kids go missing each year.
- For more details on how you can help, visit Umthombo.org, Msiziafrica.org.uk and Starfishcharity.org
It's been reported that homeless children have been rounded up using tear gas, sometimes beaten, then driven away. And it's British charities who are trying to raise awareness of the practice as they work to support these desperate youngsters who have nothing and no one.
