MAIN OBJECTIVES

How we do it

AfCiC carries out street activities and the recovery of children who daily experience situations of high social marginality. Attention is directed in particular to young people who are exposed to the most desperate and abandoned conditions with the dual objective of supporting them and reintegrating them within an adequate and healthy life context. At the same time, the project favors an environment in which children have access to education and basic health services, thus satisfying the basic needs necessary for their growth and development that is adequate to their potential. The heart of AfCiC’s work is the management of the Interim Care Center, a place of residence for children who have lived the experience of the street. The Center is located a few kilometers from the city of Thika, in a rural area surrounded by more than two hectares of land and offers formal and informal education programs that facilitate children in their school reintegration and in their return home. We work in close contact with families in order to strengthen ties within the communities of origin. The children who attend the Center live in a welcoming, protective and structured environment that allows them to become healthy, serene and balanced young people. Another precious place of the Organization’s work is the Working Children Center, “frontier outpost”, located, instead, in a strongly urbanized context, in the heart of the Majengo slum, not far from the center of Thika. The Center is an ideal space for young people who want to meet and discuss issues and issues that concern them. It has some computers with internet connections that allow them to be easily in contact with the rest of the world. The Working Children Center is also characterized by its artistic vocation: in its spaces, in fact, the boys can make different creative experiences, learning to tell their story in an original way and to communicate their deepest emotions and feelings. Finally, thanks to music and theater, they can also earn a small income. The Working Children Center is also attended by children of preschool age and by young people who have not yet left the road, but who know that in this place they find operators who are attentive and interested in their difficult lives. The reformed street children also engage in positive activities such as environment conservation, where through collection of waste materials, they sort them out. Plastics and bottles are sold to companies for recycling whereas biodegradable materials and food products are used to make compost manure that is used in the Temporary Rescue Centre or sold to willing buyers. Thus, our holistic approach, combining both curative and preventative measures, and targeting not simply the street child in isolation but the entire family, has proved a cost-effective, sustainable and very successful model in reuniting children with their families and the community, and enabling them to succeed in mainstream schools, performing well against their peers.