Marianne Merten
Six former Cape Town street children left for Germany for two weeks to meet other children at risk as part of a life-skills programme.
It was the first time Shana Steer (14) from Mitchells Plain and Vuyiswa Nogioa (17) from Nyanga East left Cape Town. Both are excited and, by their own admission, a little scared and nervous. Says Nogioa:”It’s the first time I’m climbing into a plane.”
Steer packed her bags days before the trip. “I would like to learn their language, their culture, what they eat, their ways of partying,” she said in anticipation of meeting streetkids in Germany.
The exchange programme is a joint initiative between the Cape Town NGO Streets, which is working towards getting youngsters off the streets, and a similar German NGO.
The children and their German counterparts will be based at a youth hostel in Dreichsbach near the French border. Apart from sharing their life experiences and how they got off the street, the itinerary includes sight-seeing and a two-day boat trip.
Smiles and giggles hide the personal hardship and abuse the girls overcame. Teenaged Nogioa is a breadwinner who looks after two younger brothers, a sister and grandmother, yet regularly attends school.
“I must cook. I wash the clothes. My mother doesn’t live there and my granny is sick. I’m going to get worried about my brothers,” she said before she left.
Nogioa almost followed her 15-year-old brother on to the streets permanently. Community workers at Oscar Mpetha High School intervened when the first danger signals flashed. Since 1998 she has attended Streets and learnt by talking to other children in similar situations. “Some of them left their homes because their family likes to fight. They can’t go to school because of this. Others were smoking dagga,” Nogioa said.
Steer ran away from home after being abused by her stepfather. She spent time on the streets and lived with a man before Streets rescued her. The workers there arranged for Steer to return to her family and she is now living with an uncle in Mitchells Plain. She is also back at school, determined to finish despite failing grade eight last year.
“When I was on the streets I was helping out in the garment industry. I heard about girls selling their bodies for a living, for drugs on the street. I just look at myself as lucky. If the cops hadn’t been looking for me I would be dead,” she said.
Streets programme co-ordinator Glen Leedenberg says there are many different reasons why children end up on the streets. The most common seems to be a vicious cycle of poverty and abuse at home.
“Kids are being sent out to get cash and when they bring money home they are shouted at. Many say `I might as well stay on the streets,'” Leedenberg said.
Over the past seven years Streets has sent many children back home and to school. Streets operates a drop-in centre where children can grab a shower, wash their clothes and eat. They provide workshops to teach skills like leatherwork, pottery, sewing and panelbeating for children who may not fare well at school, but need skills when they return to their communities.
Streets reintegration worker Caroline Barnes began volunteering at the centre four years ago. Now she works full-time with children – some as young as 11 or 12 – on the streets of Cape Town. She says there are as many reasons for youngsters being on the streets as there are children.
The idea for the two-week programme was first mooted in June last year when Barnes travelled overseas to meet others working with children at risk. One of them proposed bringing children from different backgrounds together.
The German exchange is funded by the organisation Synergie Soziale Bildung and the six South African children were selected after writing stories about their lives.
Barnes hopes the trip will have a positive impact. “It’s a learning experience on how to cope better with life, how to interact with others,” he said.