Financial Gazette (Harare)
Stanley Kwenda
12 April 2006
Harare — SOME books will simply not be ignored. You cannot walk past them in a bookshop. They demand to be awoken from their prostate world, lifted and touched. A new book written by a group of street kids is an example.
The book, entitled A Zimbabwean Street Story, was published with the help of German Agro Action, Germany Embassy, Streets Ahead and United Nations Volunteers, is a story about the plight of Zimbabwean street children. It tells stories about their everyday lives and how they became street children.
"This book is dedicated to street children all over the world. It was written to help people from all walks of life to understand that street children are not vagrants or enemies but rather that they are human beings who deserve to be treated kindly and with respect," said Valentine Makope, a former street kid who is behind the book project.
The book asks whether street children are badly behaved, despised and rejected. It also explores whether they are safe in the streets, they have dreams and hopes, aspirations to succeed and above all if at all they choose to be in the streets. The 60-page book chronicles their life and the story is told first hand by the street children themselves.
Many children run away from their homes because of problems such as being sent away by their stepparents, poverty at home, death of parents, and abuse. Others steal money from their parents for pleasure and eventually decide to live in the streets. But it is the maturity and focus that oozes out of some of their comments in this book which is astounding.
Most of the street children who participated in this project are now involved in various life skills training at Streets Ahead, an organization that tries to rehabilitate the children through activities such as art and sport.
"We teach them a lot of activities to try and make them self-reliant and work as a team and always put them through therapy designed to help them become members of the society again," said Hazel Parsons chairperson of Streets Ahead.
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