Bash Street Kids

Friday 6th - sometime in the afternoon

After doing the Sir Humphry bit on Mr Semenko, we were then off to another couple of presentations from the AgeNet Network partners.  The visit that really captured our hearts though was at the end of the day with the 'Center for the Protection of Children' in Bishkek.  Mira Itikeeva, the founder and director of the centre took us through the issues.

The centre has been working for the short and long term needs of street children since 1988.  There are no official estimates about the size of the problem in Bishkek, but regular surveys estimate the number of street and working children to be 2,000.

The centre works with 300 such children each year and 180 families of working children.

There's no such concept as adoption or fostering in Kyrgyzstan, so it was a tough choice between the street or an orphanage before the centre was set up.  The centre now looks after children between the ages of 6 - 16 (most of the working children are over 12) and teaches them life skills and independent living alongside education and psychological care.

The children are often from families of migrant workers.  Where they do have a home, it's an exaggeration to use the word.  'Home' for these children is a single unheated room shared with the entire family.  There are no utilities and precarious rent arrangements.  Heat is provided by burning rubbish on the floor.  The girl children are often even worse off as they are expected to care for their siblings - the families do not see this as a proper job.

Many of the working children can be worked 8 - 12 hours a day and the payment is negligable for the portering and shoe cleaning tasks they'll be expected to do at the local markets.  Around 50 - 70 soms per day (US $1.21 - $1.70) for the 'good jobs'.   Many children are simply forced to collect bags and waste - and are paid 5 soms (12 US cents) per kilogramme.   You try collecting a kilo of carrier bags to see how futile this work is...

Exploitation of children = poverty
Poverty = exploitation of children

The equation is that simple.

Some of the children are so accustomed to being on the streets that they don't want to be inside.  There's no such thing as social workers here, so the centre runs a street outreach programme.  Once at the centre, a peer to peer mentoring scheme helps teach the children about STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases) and drug abuse.  The centre also tries to work with the parents - as there's no use helping the children and delivering them back to an abusive environment (abuse isn't always physical - neglect is just as damaging).

The statistics were moving enough.  Then we got to meet the children.   They were like children anywhere - alive for the camera, excited at foreign faces, eager to show us what they'd done.  Look at their faces in the photo album (link on right) and they might challenge your perceptions of what poverty looks like, but trust me these boys are as much in need of help as many African children we often see in the more 'traditional' development literature.

As part of their life skills work, the children are taught how to make traditional felt goods such as slippers, wallets and handbags.   Here's Steven with the boys who very entrepreneurally sold him a pair of slippers that were too big for him!   In fact, not one of us got away without buying something, a trend which Catherine, Amanda and Frances have gladly continued over the last 24 hours.  The hotel now looks like a Notting Hill craft stall - quite how we're going to get the carpet on the Tajik Air flight tomorrow I don't know.

These lads deserved every penny - one of the biggest challenges in working for an NGO is reporting these stories and having to walk away.  You want to empty your wallet for everyone you meet and, of course, that's not what development is about.   We were energised, moved, and worn out by the day's experiences.  We were determined to get this blog entry out early Saturday morning, but we all overslept.  No bad thing given what we were to face the very next morning...   

Comments

[Sophie Shirt]

Thanks for the efforts you're making to update the weblog. Stories and pics really moving. Whenever people I know are away on trips I wonder how they're getting on and think about them a lot. Thanks to the blog I know something about what you're doing and how you're feeling and that makes me feel as though I'm sharing an element of the experience with you. Love to you all, look forward to hearing more

[Rob Hargreaves]

The centre clearly provides essential support for the children, even if the problem outweighs resources and support available.

Oh, and the slippers are amazing - mine are as good as new after 9 months of daily use!