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tiko

Protecting children from the dangers of living on the streets
TIKONDANE A project of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa (MSOLA)

e-mail: tikondane@africa-online.net

	TIKONDANE ANNUAL REPORT 2006
	Liberation from all that enslaves people has been a major concern of the Congregation of MSOLA since its foundation in 1869. At that time, the horrors of slave trade were still rampart in Africa. The ‘slaveries’ in today’s society may manifest themselves differently, but they are still consequences of dehumanizing injustices and exploitation, or of harmful believes which lead to misery, frustration, paralyzing fear, anger or despair in the lives of the losers. Many of those on the losing side are children. Some of those children who try to escape desperate situations come to the attention of Tikondane. Tikondane’s vision is a dignified, just, loving and caring society in which each child develops his/her full potential of a person created in the image of God. There is a deep gap between our vision and the reality which most children experience. Tikondane is inspired by the values of the Gospel, which are values that foster life (…I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. {Jn, 10,10b}). We are aware that these values are not very ‘popular’ and often differ from the ‘norms’ stipulated by society. In other words, Gospel values are not considered as being ‘normal’. Within our organization, as well as in relation to our clients and working partners we strive at fostering life-promoting values. We want to foster respect for the dignity of each person, going beyond the boundaries of our own family, culture, religion etc. We consider good stewardship, justice as a condition for reconciliation and peace, honesty and integrity, personal commitment and responsibility as core-values for our relationships and dealings.
	Challenges In the 2005 report we illustrated the challenge of child-labour. In the present report we would like to give some examples of how certain cultural believes affect children and our work. Tiferanji (names not real) is a nine year old girl. Her mother, who was not married, died three years ago. Her father doesn’t take any responsibility for the child. Since the death of her mother, Tiferanji had been pushed from house to house among the relatives. The child started displaying symptoms of stress and anxiety, e.g. disquiet sleep, night-mares, bedwetting and aggressiveness. The relatives interpreted these same signs as indicators that the child was a witch, because witches are believed to be active at night, causing sickness and killing people. As a result of these night activities they are tired in the morning. When family members got sick and died, the relatives were convinced that Tiferanji was the witch who has caused sickness and death in the family. The girl was chased away and went to the Police for help. The Victim Support Unit of the Police referred her to Tikondane. A visit to the relatives confirmed that no-one was ready to take her back. Even the Chief made it clear that the family would be chased away from his area if they took the girl back. Some of the other children at Tikondane had heard about Tiferanji’s story. They rejected and insulted her and refused to sleep in the same room with her. We reassured Tiferanji that we did not believe that she was a witch. We also took much time with the other children, trying to take away their fear and encouraging them to interact with Tiferanji. In the evenings, before going to bed, we prayed especially for God’s protection during the night. Being reassured in this way, Tiferanji started to relax, her symptoms subsided and she mixed well with the other children. She also started attending school, and it did not take long before she had reached position 1 in class. Mphatso’s story shows, that families of well-loved children, too, might be affected by cultural believes. One morning, the father of the 3 year old boy left the house like usual to go to work. His father did not notice, that Mphatso was following him. A by-passer got alerted when she observed that a small child tried to cross a busy road all by himself. She brought Mphatso to the Chief, who sent messages to the neighbouring areas, asking if there was somewhere a child missing. In the evening the child was brought to Tikondane. The only information he could give was his name. When asked for his mum’s name he would answer ‘amayi’ (mum), he knew that his dad was called ‘ababa’ (daddy), and that he stayed ‘ku nyumba’ (at home)... . The following day, a Tikondane Social Worker took up the search and went with the child through different townships. Late in the afternoon, someone recognized the child. But the home of the family was too far away to be reached by public means that same day. The following morning the Social Worker went with the child to his parent’s place. To her great surprise, funeral rites for the child had already started! What had happened? When the mother noticed that the child was missing, she went to consult a witchdoctor to find out where Mphatso was. This sing’anga looked into his mirror and told her that he saw how somebody was killing Mphatso at that very moment. He said that he saw that person cutting out organs from the boy’s body….. The Chief, the family and the neighbours believed the sing’anga, because during the past year a number of people, including children, had been actually killed for witchcraft purposes (as means for getting rich).
	MAIN ACTIVITIES OF TIKONDANE IN 2006 Early Identification and Protection of Newcomers Of the 417 registered newcomers, 316 were children and 89 were mothers. Many of them were referred to Tikondane by the Victim Support Unit of the Police, like Tiferanji and Mphatso, others were identified in town by Tikondane staff or brought by members of the public. At the transit-shelter we had 2,700 overnight stays, 2,533 of children and 191 of adults. Most newcomers stayed only for 1 to 3 days for investigation, psycho-social support and counselling. Some children were accommodated for longer periods of time, like a few boarding school children who, for very serious reasons could not spend their holidays with relatives, and some slow learners who were invited for special classes during holiday-times. The majority of newcomers came from the Central Region, followed by the Southern and Northern Regions. Others hailed from Mozambique, Zambia, Swaziland, Tanzania and Congo. Common causes for children being found in town were again child-labour, domestic violence, witchcraft, sexual abuse, or children being lost.

home

(Mavuto wished to live in a home like this one)

pilot

Yamikani wishes to have a home from where he can go to school without fear and worries, because his dream is to become a pilot..

Reintegration

Reintegration of children into their natural environment remains Tikondane’s main aim. In cases like Mphatso’s, this may just involve a handover of the child once the relatives have been found, and a reflection with the relatives and other concerned members of the community on possible learning-points which can be drawn from what had happened.

But cases like Tiferanji’s may require a long process of working with relatives and key-members of the community, as well as with the child. The challenge is for caregivers to understand the psycho-social needs of children and to change the attitude towards a child that might have been labelled to be a witch, a trouble-maker, a thief, etc.

Reintegration proves to be very difficult for children who have lived on the streets for a long time. This is why early identification and protection are so important.

More than 500 follow up visits were made, over 80 of them to children who had been reintegrated during previous years, but who still need some psycho-social or material support in order to be able to stay at home. During follow up visits we pay special attention to the attendance and performance of children at school. In order to economize on trips, we try to avoid organizing special journeys to children from previous years, but profit by reintegration-trips of new children in their areas. Some children cannot be fully reintegrated, because there is no-one who is able to take care of them or to handle them. Without more intensive help, most of these children would be on the streets.

The managements of three Boarding Schools continued taking up the challenge and accepted a total 27 Primary School Pupils of Tikondane. Most of these girls and boys had been severely traumatized and behaved accordingly. Through the joint efforts of Tikondane and the Boarding Schools, all children made remarkable progress not only academically, but also in emotional balance and social competence.

Most of the boarders are able to spend the school-holidays with relatives. But there were 7 children who had to stay at Tikondane because they had nowhere else to go. They were totally rejected by their extended families or they were in serious danger of abuse. Having no relatives, or knowing to be rejected by people of their own blood causes terrible suffering to these children.

We still hope that with time some of the relationships will heal and that some of the children will be able to join relatives.

The reality of these children poses an unresolved challenge. This is the reason why we started exploring possibilities for foster-care and adoption. But there are many challenges not only because of the age and life-experience of our children, but also because of possible complications due to the extended family system.

	Children’s activities Special children’s activities were done mainly during the holiday times, when some of the children stayed for longer periods at the shelter. These activities included special classes for slow learners, games, composing and performing drama, poems, songs, sports, and educational visits. During Christmas time our children felt very proud for having been invited for various functions where they could perform their skills. Networking According to needs and possibilities, Tikondane continued collaborating with other relevant stakeholders, e.g. the Victim Support Unit, the Social Welfare Department, Labour Office, NOVOC and a number of its member organizations, organizations working with children in/on the streets in Lilongwe, Blantyre and Mzuzu, different Parishes and Churches, the Society for the Advancement of Women, Association of Women Lawyers in Malawi, Centre for Social Concern, various radio-stations for announcements, etc. Much of Tikondane’s advocacy (mainly for child-protection and increased allocation of public funds to Orphans and Vulnerable Children) was done in collaboration with networking partners. Strategic Plan for 2007-2009 Examples like Tiferanji’s show that there is a great need for many people to become aware of the psycho-social needs of children, especially those who have undergone traumatic experiences. One of the new elements of our new strategic plan are regular short radio-programs which aim at sharpening the awareness of the listeners. We hope that some unnecessary suffering of children can be prevented in this way. Tikondane’s service – many have contributed! Thoko drew the picture below, showing children in the middle of a village, expressing their joy and gratitude as they dance and sing at the rhythm of a drum (circle in the centre). The MSOLA, staff and beneficiaries of Tikondane express their gratitude to all who have made the services of Tikondane possible. We would like to thank each one of our friends and benefactors for their contributions which were in cash and kind, in many voluntary services, in the sharing of experiences and expertise, in words and gestures of encouragement and last but not least in prayerful support. We also want to wholeheartedly thank all our fellow stake-holders. There has been much good collaboration which benefited children and their families.


	ZIKOMO (thank you)
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