The Homestead (Projects for street children)

Sandra Morreira

Today we had a phone call from a man called David. When he was a little boy David lived on the streets in Cape Town. He phoned to tell us proudly that he is now married, working and has his own little girl and boy. The Homestead and all the people who care enough to contribute to this organisation have made this possible for David and hundreds of other children over the past 23 years.

Troy Blacklaws is donating the royalties from the sale of Blood Orange to an organisation working with street children in Cape Town. His extraordinary gesture, unsolicited by The Homestead, will help the children to secure some of the benefits that most of us take for granted. When you read the novel, you get a strong sense that Troy spent his childhood in a family that was filled with love and security - things that street children have little experience of.

Street children are victims of multiple abuse. In most studies, the causative factors that emerge in various combinations are poverty, unemployment, overcrowding, family upheaval (death, desertion, remarriage and single parenthood), alcohol abuse amongst parents, and school failure.

In South Africa, much of the work we do is actually mopping up the social casualties of political decisions. The structural abuse of the Apartheid regime is responsible for many of the causes, which continue today as communities struggle with issues of poverty and family dysfunction. The situation is exacerbated by rapid urbanisation and the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, without the necessary social safety nets to deal in a meaningful way with the problem. Street children are the neglected, abused and rejected offspring of parents and communities benumbed by the minimal conditions of their lives.

The Homestead has a simple mission: to help street children reconstruct their shattered lives. We work only with boys, and our sister organisation Ons Plek works with girls. Ninety percent of the children on the streets are boys. Our projects are based on 23 years of experience, which have taught us that interventions should be multifaceted in order to address the needs of each child as he or she moves through various phases of rehabilitation. Not all children will need to use all the stages - we move at the pace of each child. The models that we use take into account that the children must return to poor communities that are not very comfortable or stimulating. We are careful not to undermine the best efforts that many parents can make on behalf of their children.

The Homestead has developed several strategies to help the children - ranging from work with boys still living on the streets, to a drop-in centre as a first step off the street, then a shelter where we can begin to assess the child and his home situation in a much more serious way. At all stages, we try to facilitate the child's return to his relatives and his community of origin. Maybe not the same relatives he ran away from, because often he had good reason for not wanting to be there, but someone from his family who cares enough to take him in. If that fails, we have a children's home in Khayelitsha, which offers more permanent placement. We also run two prevention projects in communities from which the children originate - Manenberg on the Cape Flats and Khayelitsha - and a job creation project for mothers.

We invite you to visit our website www.homestead.org.za for fuller information about our organisation.

Some of The Homestead's stories

• A happy ending

  She has seen her son on TV. The street worker identified the child who had been sent to Cape Town to live with relatives. He had run away and had been living on the streets for more than a year. Withdrawn, angry and uncommunicative, his face lights up when told of the phone call. "Will you send me back to her?" We buy a bus ticket, and the next day we get a phone call from the mother. "Thank you, thank you." She's weeping. "I'm holding him in my arms right now."

• Sticks's last chance

  There have been many stories about Sticks and his cunning strategies over the years. Staff, magistrates, Board members, psychologists and no doubt members of the public have been challenged, exasperated, indignant and occasionally beguiled by him.
  
  I saw him outside The Homestead head office. He told me the organisation was giving him a "last chance" (I wish I had R100 for every "last" chance Sticks has had) at the shelter, Learn to Live, the children's home, at Court and with various long-suffering volunteers. It was his last, last chance - he must stay at his brother's house and come to help The Homestead driver during the day - every day! He would get meals, some clothes, pocket-money and no doubt plenty of attention!
  
  "What happens if I mess up my last chance?" he asked in his usual challenging way. But I saw for a fleeting instant on his face the troubled, uncertain boy under all that bluster. "Well, hang in there," I said, not for a moment believing he would. And of course he didn't. The truth of the matter is that staying with his brother is no picnic - with all the drug and alcohol abuse in the household, he is totally neglected. He has, of course, had several more "last chances" since then!

• What the children think

  We asked, "What have you learnt at The Homestead?" (This was a serious research question!) One child said, "I learned to go to bed early"; another said, "I learned to find God"; another declared that he had learned "not to make a noise when big shots come to The Homestead". The most poignant response was: "At The Homestead I learned, for the first time, how it is to be happy."

• The bus stop

  Gerald Jacobs, The Homestead's driver, submitted the application below for the post of street worker when it was advertised. He has proved to be passionate about the children, and they feel it and respond like flowers opening to the sun.

  It was 17h45 and I was waiting for my already late bus. "I still need to fetch my kids", "I'm going to be late for my meeting" were just some of the complaints heard in the very long queue. I tried to think of something positive amidst all this fretting and fuming. I wondered what my brother had made for supper and how I'd savour every inch of the pasta which was always the order of the day when he cooked.
  
  My attention was suddenly drawn to a little boy who was going through the dirt bin, trying to find something for supper. Everybody had soon forgotten about how late they were and the silence in the queue hung like smog on a late summer afternoon in the CBD, as the boy soon had everybody thinking about how fortunate they were.
  
  "Wat is jou naam?" I asked. The question had everybody looking at me as if I'd spoken in some alien language. The boy responded quite casually. Our conversation had the ears of everybody in the queue. Elroy was new on the street and had heard the other boys speak about Yizani (our drop-in centre) but didn't really know where it was. As I went on to tell him what time he should be there next morning, everybody seemed much more at ease about speaking to him and loosened their holds on their handbags. I joked with him trying to get him to lend me his takkies for the weekend! He wasn't prepared to trade anything I had to offer for his takkies, so he quickly responds with a loud "Jy's mal", which had everybody chuckling.
  
  Elroy's departure got everybody chatting to me about street children as they voiced their concerns and problems around the issue. What was clear from the conversation was that everybody was concerned about street kids and wanted to help in some way. They realised that their perceptions about this marginalised minority had prevented them from making any meaningful contribution toward the plight of street children.
  
  I believe that as a street worker it is imperative to build trusting relationships with the street kids, police, businesses, security companies and people working in the CBD. By building relationships, I can change the negative perceptions people have about children on the street. In so doing, I will make The Homestead and its services more visible in the CBD and people more responsible toward street kids. Getting children off the street would be not only my responsibility but everybody working in the CBD.
  
  I'm an avid footballer with loads of experience, which includes completing a "level one" coaching course at the famous Manchester United soccer academy in England. This would certainly help me build the necessary self-esteem and skill needed at Yizani to settle the score with the unbeaten glamour boys of Elukhuselweni.
  
  So the bus finally arrived and I was left pondering on the difference I could make granted the opportunity of working on the street …

  Gerald is 23 years old, and like most of The Homestead staff, he cares enough to devote his working time (and many extra hours) to being there for the boys.

Buy your copy now and support The Homestead. Click here to read Meg Samuelson's review of Blood Orange, and to find out more about Troy Blacklaws, click here for a Ricochet interview.

LitNet: 13 December 2005

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