Focus on the plight of street children

Frehiwot Eshetu appears like any ordinary daughter. As a 13-year-old she helps her mother clean around their small, mud-walled home and looks after her youngest brother Tariq. Yet a year ago she was living on the streets with prostitutes, her friends were using drugs, sniffing benzene and begging. Surviving on scraps from garbage she soon became sick, her stomach infested with worms and her skin and hair riddled with lice. But Frehiwot is lucky. She is described as a success story – plucked from the streets of Addis Ababa and re-united with her family. "I feel as though I lost my childhood with the horrible things I saw while I was living on the streets," said Frehiwot. "I was always sick and cold. My life was miserable. I sometimes see street children I know and it makes me very sad that they still have to live like that. Some of them do not have any family. No child should have to live like that." Currently there are around 60,000 street kids living a desperate existence in the Ethiopian capital. Some say there could be twice that number. Yet all agree that the number of street children, too often seen begging at the sides of expensive cars, is set to soar as the number of AIDS orphans in Ethiopia tops one million, according to the health ministry. Frehiwot's mother Tewres, 38, clings to her daughter as she tells of the hardship faced by their family which eventually forced Frehiwot to run away. Each day they would go out begging as Frehiwot's father Eshetu is unable to work after losing his eyesight at the age of 16. If they were lucky they scraped together around four Ethiopian birr a day – around US $0.50. The family would get food scraps from hotels in the city. The poverty and the shame of leading her blind father to tourist spots to help beg eventually drove Frehiwot away. "I used to be ashamed by this," she says. "We would live on leftovers. I would miss school because I would have to take my father out to beg." She weeps as she explains why she ran away to the streets. But Frehiwot is quick to add: "I love my family despite them being poor." Frehiwot is not the only victim from her life on the streets. The traumatic effects are deeply ingrained on the entire family. "I feel very sorry,” says her mother Tewres, who has five children, speaking through an interpreter. "At this age, to see the catastrophic things she has seen. It has taken away her childhood just because we are poor.

"Frehiwot with her family inside their home"

"I was forced to give my young girl to the streets. Now when I look into her eyes all I feel is guilt. She is our only daughter and we almost lost her." Frehiwot’s plight is certainly not unusual and is seen in developing countries across the world. The Irish non-governmental organisation, GOAL, is one of the leading agencies in Addis Ababa working with street children – and who rescued Frehiwot. Their programmes are increasingly designed to re-integrate children into the community. They are currently looking after the needs of over 500 street children, through two drop-in centres and seven night shelters, located in some of the poorest parts of the capital. GOAL psychologist Asafach Haileselassie says that all too often street children are very bright and excel at school. "They are very aware of their environment," said Asafach, who has worked with street children for over 10 years. "They can see the squalor and poverty, and think that they can make a better life somewhere else. "In some cases their decision to leave home is completely selfless – to reduce the burden on the family, but often they are forced to leave purely because the family cannot cope." Asafach, who specialises in child psychology, said the effects of living on the streets can be extremely harmful and long lasting. But GOAL not only focuses on the child. Counsellors work both with the children and their families. "A street child will suffer very negative affects," she said. "These children have serious health problems, more often than not they will have serious psychological problems and these can take a long time to sort out. "The children you find on the streets are extremely distrustful. They can be aggressive and are wary of adults who they believe have let them down in the past. The key to helping these children is to make them realise that they are members of the community and have a role to play. However, at the same time it is important to work with the children’s families and communities so that they also realise street children’s predicament. That is why our programmes focus on awareness raising, re-unification and re-integration with all members of the community. Often these children will have very low self esteem. We have to build that back up." The children also receive non-formal education – a strategy designed so that children can come in for reading and writing lessons at times that suit them. Under the re-unification project, street children’s families also receive a small loan to try and help them escape from their poverty – which is often the root cause of their break-up. "But we don’t just leave them with their family after that," said Asafach. "Sometimes it is hard for these children to re-integrate. We will visit every month to see how the family are getting along and to help smooth out difficulties they have." So far GOAL has re-united 43 children with their families. Not one has returned to the streets. But it is a long, drawn-out process, often taking up to a year of counselling and education to help the children fully re-integrate. Fantu Hawaz, a nurse who works the two drop-in centres for street children run by GOAL, said many of the children have contracted serious diseases by the time they arrive. "We have seen very young girls with sexually transmitted diseases," she said. "But most of the children will usually have parasites in their stomachs because of the food they have been eating. Skin diseases are common, as are bronchial problems and eye infections." Frehiwot, like many other children eking out an existence on the streets, fled from poverty. She was picked up by GOAL after just a few months and before more serious damage was done. A bright-eyed girl, she was seduced by the idea of making a better life for herself. The small loan her family received has helped them buy some sheep so they can sell them for a profit when they have been fattened up. "Now I know it was impossible to make a better life by living on the streets," Frehiwot says. "I am now back at school studying and want to become an English teacher. It is hard to come back and I think I learnt a lot on the streets, but you cannot live life like that. You become an animal, all you have is hate."