wfn.org | Kenyan Lutheran Women's Struggle to Keep Girls off the Streets

["Frank Imhoff" <FRANKI@elca.org>]

The Goal is Rehabilitation and Family Reunion

NAIROBI, Kenya/GENEVA, 17 July 2002 (LWI) - It is lunchtime at the
Pangani Lutheran Children's Center (PLCC). Girls wearing different
school uniforms jostle for attention as a visiting volunteer nurse
attends to them.

In a short while, the exercise is over and the girls join their
colleagues for their mid-day meal in another building. Soon lunch
is over and they leave for their different schools. A typical day
at the PLCC.

The brainchild of the Kenya Evangelical Lutheran Church (KELC)
women, the PLCC was started in 1994 with the aim to provide
assistance to destitute girls. A small feeding point then, today
it caters for 75 children including street girls and orphans,
mainly from Nairobi city's sprawling Mathare slums and other
poor-income surroundings, according to Ms. Margaret Obaga, the
KELC women's group coordinator.

Mercy Aoko, 11, says the center has been her sole source of food,
clothing and other basic requirements. Her widowed mother brought
her here because she could not adequately provide for her
daughter. The mother herself occasionally turns to the PLCC to
feed her two other children.

Through PLCC sponsorship, the girls attend school up to the
highest education level possible. Ms. Mary Mshana, the center's
project coordinator says their objective is to reduce the number
of families living on the streets by assisting street girls. But
there is an age limit for enrollment, 5-12 years.

Still, persuading the older girls to try out the center is not
easy. The PLCC enlists the services of social workers. "It takes
convincing language and sometimes food is used as bait to lure
them from the streets or slum areas," Philip Amuma, a social
worker and volunteer teacher says.

A majority of them are under the protection of their street
"husbands", usually ready to put up a fierce fight against any
attempt to separate them from their "wives". In some of the slum
areas, social workers are susceptible to organized gangs that
threaten them with their very life should they "set foot" there
again looking for girls to rehabilitate. "It is a very challenging
but sometimes dangerous job," he notes.

Once the girls are under PLCC's care adapting to new surroundings
is not easy either. "Because of their street lifestyle, subjecting
the girls to new rules does not work and many of them resort to
the streets again," Amuna says.

The center's hostel currently accommodates 12 girls but "there are
many more needy cases out there that are beyond our capacity,"
according to Obaga. With due consideration for all street
children, the KELC women are determined to continue looking out
for street girls. "They are more vulnerable than the boys," she
argues. From a tender age, some of them are exposed to physical
and sexual abuse, and are therefore prone to all manner of
complications including diseases such as HIV/AIDS. A small clinic
run by a volunteer caters to the girls' medical needs.

Obaga says "some of the girls are in the streets because their
parents are there, others have been lured by friends, others are
dealing in and taking drugs." But the goal is to rehabilitate them
and re-unite them with their families or guardians. The center
provides counseling and organizes educational seminars.

Through its "stretch-a-hand" project, the PLCC advances small
loans to mainly single mothers and widows to enable them to start
small income-generating businesses. Obaga is optimistic--the
two-year venture has so far succeeded with a negligible number of
loan defaulters.

The PLCC would like to offer more to destitute women but donations
are limited. "The number of needy girls keeps soaring, partly
because of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which has left many young girls
as orphans," the KELC women coordinator adds.

The 30,000-member KELC, with headquarters in Nairobi, is a result
of south to south missionary work from the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in Tanzania. It joined the Lutheran World Federation (LWF)
in 1992, and got its first bishop, Rev. Zachariah W. Kahuthu in
1997. The Western Province-based Evangelical Lutheran Church in
Kenya with 55,000 members joined the LWF in 1970.

By LWI Correspondent Joseph K'Amolo

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the
Lutheran tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund (Sweden), the LWF now
has 133 member churches in 73 countries representing over 60.5
million of the 64.3 million Lutherans worldwide. The LWF acts on
behalf of its member churches in areas of common interest such as
ecumenical relations, theology, humanitarian assistance, human
rights, communication, and the various aspects of mission and
development work. Its secretariat is located in Geneva,
Switzerland.)

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