I went to visit SAFINA (a centre for street children, or those children in desperate need of help with problem homes, or living on the city dump) with my MAF neighbour Liz, and we left our younger children at home - (the ones that are not yet at school).
Open the door, come on in! Let's go see!
Safina is a voluntary project, supported by various individuals and run by a German nurse, Andrea, who also lives on our MAF compound and works for AIM. Donations are what runs this fantastic place, that makes a difference to so many children. The children are mostly boys, but a few girls benefit too.
Being on the streets is a tough life anywhere, for anyone, but here in Tanzania there is no government aid, no official projects, social welfare or any kind of centrally organised system to give a helping hand to disadvantaged children and their parents. Andrea was telling us yesterday that a child caught on the streets by the police can result in them being put into prison- Safina have children on their books as young as 4 years old who already have a prison record, since they were found living on the streets! Some of the children Safina deal with may live alone, in a household where there are no adults. Some of them have been taken in by Safina staff who head up a couple of homes for the boys in their care.
Safina provides a place where the children are tracked and registered carefully and their situations reviewed by the staff team. The staff then endeavour to get the children into education and provide the books, shoes, school registration etc, to help get the children off the streets and into school, since education is a vital key to giving them a more promising future. Meticulous hand-written files are kept to record information on the individuals in Safina's care.
Adrea and Patrick, Directors of Safina, with Liz. (Liz has just returned home to prepare to have her third baby, leaving Andrew here continuing to work for MAF, for another 5 weeks or so).
Behind them you can see the empty pigeon holes that the boys use to keep their books, bags, shoes and uniform overnight, to ensure that they aren't stolen on the streets at night. The fact that they are fairly empty is quite a good sign - the boys are using their stuff and most of them are at school.
Above is Patrick who was teaching the Bible lesson the day we visited. A good stimulating lesson.The centre run an educational class, followed by some Bible teaching, followed by a meal for all children who turn up. This begins just after the schools close for the day, and could be the only meal that they can count on getting. At least once a week they eat meat (their favourite), often with rice, vegetables and fruit.
Afterwards they line up outside to register for the day. The Scandanavian guys are volunteers who are here in Dodoma for about 6 months, helping daily at the centre. Andrea told us that it costs them 1 million Tshillings to feed the children every month, and on top of that there are other costs eg, rent of the building, school fees for the children, uniforms, shoes, etc. All this has to be met by donations.
Here they're enjoying their food. Some like to have the fruit first.
They find somewhere to sit and then eat.
Cooking is all done in a little shelter outside and eating likewise.
I wasn't sure why this big pot seemed to be full of hot coals, but we were told that there was food inside and the coals had just been tipped on top to finish off the cooking. It's a hot place to stand, and not an easy job cooking for so many! I had a go, but when temperatures are ranging between 23 C and 35 C it's not an optimim place to work.
A nursery is run in the mornings, for the younger children, mainly those who live at the dump. These are aged as little as 2 1/2 years old (is your heart breaking yet?) and can be aged up to 6 or 7 years old, as Standard 1 (the first year of Primary school here) only starts at age 7. This was not an easy place to visit, but it was great to see the work that Andrea is doing. It was encouraging to see that the boys have some positive input into their lives now, and for them, that some people do care about them now. Praise God for all the work that is being achieved at this place, and when I compare my own life and the lives of my children with the children who I met here, there is just so much that I need to be thankful for.
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