Winner — Not-for-profit Organisations: Twilight Children
The trouble with helping street children is that the problem sometimes looks like a bottomless pit that eats resources, but never seems to deliver any results. Yet, as the problem escalates on the streets of Johannesburg, the option of simply not helping does not exist.
Twilight Children, a programme aimed at helping street children in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, is an old warhorse in this difficult cause.
It is the winner of the Investing in the Future Not-For-Profit Organisation Award. Twilight Children has been around for more than two decades and has helped thousands of children and raised critical awareness of street children in South Africa.
One of the largest and most specialised street children projects in Johannesburg, the Twilight shelter holds up to 106 children and feeds more than 300 youths, as well as some elderly citizens, through its soup kitchen outreach programme.
“When I see a child, arriving at the shelter with his little carry bag, looking hopeless and miserable, it breaks my heart,” said Jane Prichard, executive director of Twilight Children, who has been with the organisation for 21 years. “Seeing that child a few months later, with hope in his eyes, makes everything worthwhile. Our boys are happy.
“The legacy of apartheid has left behind a large group of children at risk because of social and economic problems caused by an unequal distribution of resources. Even after a decade of democracy, an “increasing number of children and youth are calling the streets their home,” said Prichard.
She pointed out that this is not the only reason for the increasing number of street children in South Africa.
“In the past relatively few children living on the streets were orphans but, due to the HIV/Aids pandemic, this has become a more plausible reality and an increasing contributor to the rise in the number of children living on our streets. This is why the organisation runs an Aids awareness programme, with the department of health. It has been up and running for two years.”
Cathy MacDonald, fundraiser at Twilight Children, said the organisation’s main goal is the fostering of a value system that will embrace others so that they will one day serve humanity in their own productive way. To reach these initiatives, Twilight has various programmes that work towards equipping boys with life skills that will enable them to integrate back into society and enter the job market. The organisation also aims to limit the child’s exposure to drugs, petty crime, sexual abuse and other dangers he might come across by living on the streets.
Twilight provides training in pottery-making, silk-screening, woodwork and beadwork. The organisation is working towards becoming sustainable by selling more pottery, beads, Christmas cards and other products, all hand-made by its children.
The Twilight Shelter mentoring programme for older boys was established four years ago.
“Now that the group is well established as a trusting environment, most of the boys are comfortable to share experiences and feelings,” said Anton Richman, trustee and mentoring programme coordinator.
In addition to equipping children with various skills and providing mentorship, an IT Centre — and a gymnasium — will soon be opened, both of which have been approved and sponsored by the department of transport and public works. The centre will also have a crèche for trainees with children who attend the training programmes. In this way the working mothers have access to childcare while they are working.
The organisation’s aftercare programme caters for those children who are placed back at home after they have completed their individual rehabilitation programme at the shelter. For the placement to be sustainable, additional support is often needed for the whole family.
“This is offered in terms of weekly food parcels for needy families, school supplies and purchase of transport tickets. In some instances improvements are made to the family home in the form of an additional room to make living conditions more conducive for reunification,” said MacDonald.
Twilight Children mainly focused on the boy child, but this changed in March 2004 when a drop-in programme for girls was established. Today girls and women in the community are involved in income-generating projects. While accommodation is not provided for this group, Twilight has, on numerous occasions, successfully reunited girls with their families or admitted them to girls’ shelters in the city through the outreach programme. MacDonald said the programme requires additional funding if more children and young women are to be accommodated.
Prichard said the organisation’s future dream of a Halfway House would accommodate young people involved in skills training and would help to prepare them to live independently. The initiative would function as a communal home and prepare them for reintegration into society. They would receive training on budgeting and financial planning, as well as household and life skills before leaving to make it on their own. It would accommodate up to 20 youth from Twilight Children.