Jabulani Project

Gap Year Students

Emma, Fiona, Isaac, Nathiel

Our original plan today had been to go to Dloko and do the gardening programme, but we were woken rather earlier than expected by a phone call from Russel, one of the SISCO workers. He had been trying to get in contact with us for a couple of days but Isaac’s phone had been broken so we hadn’t heard anything from him until now. SISCO were in a bit of a panic as the terrible weather had meant it was impossible for the street kids to sleep out on the streets or in any of their usual sheltered spots. What is more some street kids hide in the drains, under the manholes, to avoid getting abused by the police. The drains were filling up in these torrential rains and SISCO made it there job to rescue these kids.

SISCO had taken in over 50 children over the past couple of days into an old office building that they had been allowed to use by the owners. It was a fairly dilapidated building with no electricity or water. We brought bread, cheese and margarine to make sandwiches for the kids though many of them had gone out to beg and try and earn money by the time we had got there as the rain had stopped.

When we arrived Russel showed us around the building and we saw the conditions that the boys were sleeping in. There were lots of old mattresses and a few blankets in the corridors upstairs and Russel told us that there had been three boys sleeping on each mattress. We helped out to make lunch for the boys coming back later and were then taken by Abdul who wanted us to get to know some of the kids that were still in the centre. He told us to make a list of questions that we would ask the children and then brought them in to see us one by one. We talked to the first child as a group and then decided to split into groups so that we weren’t as intimidating and to help them speak openly and freely.

The kids told us about their home lives and the reasons behind their coming to the streets. All of them seemed keen to open up to us and to try and get some help from SISCO. This was the first time they had actually been approached by a group of adults who really wanted to help them. They were all eager to go back to school but many didn’t have the money or means to go themselves and couldn’t go back to their families because of abuse and problems at home. One of the boys when questioned revealed that he was only on the streets because he had been lost on the beach when out on a day trip with his family. He had never found his way home as he lived quite far out in one of the townships and had been on the streets for about 6 months unable to get home. We discussed the various possible ways of helping these kids with Abdul and made several decisions that we will hopefully be able to take part in. These will mainly involve getting into contact with the boys' families and trying to work around the problems that they had told us. There would also have to be an alternative for children who wouldn’t be safe at home with their families.

Abdul is determined to keep the building they are currently using open to the children for the next few months but is concerned about finding the money to feed the boys.

After our conversations with Abdul we assisted the ladies in the kitchen by peeling potatoes, chopping onions and carrots and making tea for the workers. We ended up staying pretty much the whole day. We look forward to working with SISCO again later in the week and continuing to work with the kids that we met today.