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Lungelo Ndhlovu
IT’S an early Monday morning and Sibongumusa Moyo (not real name) wakes up at Thuthuka Street Children’s Home, ready for a new school day.
She is enrolled at Trenance Primary School which is near this rehabilitation centre for street children and is doing Grade 6.At least her future is now certain and bright as compared to life on the streets. Food, shelter, water to bath and friends are available here. At the centre, life is normal and far much better than the harsh living conditions of the street. She no longer sleeps on the cardboard boxes or scavenge for food in bins.

“I love it here at the centre. I sleep on my own bed and the school where I learn is very near. I have made friends at school and sometimes I visit my friends so that we do homework together at their homes during the weekends. I also participate in athletics,” said Sibongumusa, carrying her snack pack, preparing to leave for school.

Thuthuka rehabilitation centre is home to other 20 street children and 18 of them are enrolled at nearby primary schools. Situated on the outskirts of Bulawayo in Trenance, the street children’s home has led Bulawayo’s initiative to help its homeless children by also providing life skills, education and counselling at the drop-in centre, situated in the city centre, where screening for rehabilitation into Trenance facility, is done.

The director for Thuthuka Street Children’s Home, Mthokozisi Ndlovu, said dozens of youngsters from all over the central business district converge at Thuthuka drop-in centre in the heart of the city daily for a free lunch, a bath and a chance to wash their clothes before returning to the pavements.

“What we normally do when we have identified these kids on the streets is to allow them to come to the drop-in centre or contact centre in town. When they come in, those who are not ready to be reintegrated into the rehabilitation centre at Trenance, are free to come in and have a bath, wash their clothes, have meals and then go back to the street,” said Ndlovu.

Not all kids who live in the streets want to go back into the proper system like a shelter and be taken good care of.

“Of course you get a child living on the street saying: ‘I’m better off in the street, I’m making money on the street or I have got my business and I have got my freedom and my independence out there, so I would rather live on the street’.

“We then say, ok for the time being we are working with you, come in have a bath and a meal. We usually have a programme for them as well there, to ensure that they have a decent meal and also to make them have a warm blanket over their head,” said Ndlovu.

A street child, who identified himself as Tapiwa, said he is a businessman, living on the streets and cannot live confined in a shelter.

“An old person like me has to fend for himself. I get a lot of money from the car washing business. I like the freedom I have on the streets and I can’t go to the shelter. My other friend is renting a house for $20 at Cowdray Park. The money that I get from my car washing business I surrender it at the drop-in centre and until it multiplies and when it does so, I will find a place of my own and rent,” said Tapiwa.

Thuthuka’s preliminary surveys have shown that at a conservative estimate, there are between 150 to 200 street children sleeping in the city centre and eking out a living by begging.

Thuthuka Street Children’s Home is dependent on donors and well-wishers to fund its operations and sometimes it cannot afford to carry out its mandate fully because of lack in financial support.

The Rotary Club of Matopos, Old Miltonians Club, made a donation to Thuthuka street children’s rehabilitation centre recently.

Their donation included pairs of shoes, mealie-meal, powdered milk, sugar beans, brown sugar and kapenta.

Ndlovu welcomed the Rotary Club’s donation and appealed for more sponsors to help them with operational costs for the Thuthuka Street Children’s Home.

“When Rotary Club buys into a project, it changes the dimension completely. For them to have come and paint this place and come back again, it’s a sign that they want to work with us. They painted our main house some time last year and we have also appealed to them on school fees for our children we keep here at the centre and their commitment with us is long term now,” said Ndlovu.

For the city of Bulawayo and many other provinces countrywide, the number of children living on the street is growing as a second generation of street children are born and bred on the streets.

“The street children problem is revolving in that we now have the offspring of street children needing the same attention as their mothers. The growing number of children born to young mothers on the street is a new dimension which needs a fresh approach. We also need more support for the extension of counselling, life skills education and a fund specifically for tuition fees for these children,” said Ndlovu.

At Thuthuka Street Children’s Home children are equipped with various practical life skills such as farming and welding, although they are yet to revamp the workshop, which lacks tools. Street children have managed to grow vegetables and maize.

So far various projects like shoe mending have yielded good results as they keep these children from committing crime.

Bulawayo residents have generally regarded street children as a public nuisance as the older youths are often involved in petty crimes, from cellphone snatching, mugging, house breaking and theft from motor vehicles.Young girls have also been forced into commercial sex work, even among the street children themselves.