Rays of hope

Street children are among the most vulnerable members of society, needing care and support like anyone else, writes Hana Aboulghar*

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The right to have fun

For me, it started with an article in Al-Ahram in April 2001. Fahmy Howeidy wrote in his weekly column about "a little boy who sought shelter from the cold of the night behind the wheels of a truck parked on the streets of Cairo. In the early morning, the driver took his seat, started the engine, put the gears in reverse and pressed the gas, crushing the little boy's sparsely clothed body."

Suddenly, I saw the street children in Cairo more clearly, noticing how thin their clothes were. I'd notice a little boy sleeping on the pavement in the cold, or looking in on me and my two daughters safe in our car. I tried not to imagine their loneliness and fear.

I began looking for people who knew more about how to help. It took me just a few months to realise it was not going to be easy. There turned out to be less than a handful of NGOs involved with street children in Egypt. At last I came to one of Hope Village Society's (HVS) reception centres, where I was met with confident staff. It was easy to see that these people knew what they were doing.

Children are approached at their places of gathering on the streets by trained social workers. They are encouraged through kindness and friendship to visit the nearest reception centre where they find a friendly welcome, are given a change of clothes and asked to take a bath, and then they are ready for a day of fun. The reception centres are open from 9am until 5pm, and the children have access to a variety of activities, to hot meals, a safe nap, and, most importantly, to the human warmth of someone who cares to listen without judging or preaching.

After many conversations between child and social worker, many truths are reached and families are approached with the hope of mending the bonds that have been broken by neglect, or divorce. Some of these families are eligible for micro-loans, with which they can start a small family project in order to overcome poverty, the sole condition being to keep their child in a happy home. Not all of these trials meet with success, and when the families are unwilling or unable to accommodate the child, he or she has a home at one of the HVS's eight shelters, where they are allowed to live out their childhood.

Thus started my relationship with Hope Village. In December 2002, a reception centre for girls in Imbaba was opened, sponsored by family and friends, and managed by HVS. For the girls rehabilitated by this reception centre, three shelters were established. The total number of HVS branches has reached 15.

The number of children on the streets of Egypt is rising to anything between 500,000 and two million. Children are leaving home at a younger age, and the number of girls are now exceeding a third of the total number.

At HVS, we serve a total of 5000 children per year, a third of which we successfully convince to go back to their families, or to accept to live at our shelters. We are taking great measures to improve our success rate. We know that the reason for failure is not that the kids "enjoy" life on the streets, or that they don't appreciate the love and care they receive at our shelters; it is the "addiction" they gain to the freedom of the street that makes our job so difficult.

At the age when they are supposed to learn to accept such simple social rules as sleeping at night and being awake in the morning, these children live in full unsupervised freedom, which allows them to "jump on the roof of a train heading to Alexandria, because they long to have breakfast by the sea".

This kind of freedom is addictive, despite the very high price they pay on the street. It is an addiction that may require psychological and social therapy, in addition to addressing the psychiatric illnesses they so often gain from the repeated instances of sexual, physical and psychic abuse to which they are exposed. All these factors put street children in the position, like all addicts, where they feel the pain of living as they do, see the beauty of leaving that life, but still suffer from being unable to live within four walls.

Until the day comes when the economic and social situation in Egypt doesn't force children onto the street; till the day comes when no child will need to look for shelter behind the wheels of a truck, NGOs like Hope Village, Caritas, and others will remain the only light in some very dark, young lives.

* The writer is a paediatrician at Cairo University.