{"id":405,"date":"2013-09-24T08:00:05","date_gmt":"2013-09-24T07:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/blogs\/english\/?p=405"},"modified":"2013-09-24T08:00:05","modified_gmt":"2013-09-24T07:00:05","slug":"street-children-have-grown-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/street-children-have-grown-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Street children have grown up"},"content":{"rendered":"

One may not recognize them while driving around the town or trying to find a car parking station. Most of the young men who are looking after people\u2019s cars in exchange of a little sum of money, are the ones who used to be street children who are now adults. They have grown up. What has happened to them?<\/strong> – By Joanna Nganda
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Dusabe<\/a>

Dusabe Nduwimana, a street grown up aged 20. \u201cI have been in the streets of Bujumbura for over 6 years; and now I don\u2019t want to live like this anymore. When I came I was very young and thought the city will give me better living conditions and job opportunities\u201d \u00a9Iwacu<\/p><\/div>\n

Dusabe Nduwimana is one of many other young men who grew up in the street. He is 20 years old although he could easily look 30. Dusabe\u2019s life has not been easy, most of his past can be seen on his arms and legs, carved for good; later he says that they are scars some battles left on his body.
\n\u201cMy mother passed away when I was very young, and shortly after my father remarried. My stepmother did not take care of me; in fact she even used to beat me seriously even if I was sick. If my mother hadn\u2019t passed away, I would never have been a street child\u201d, Dusabe says.<\/p>\n

When Dusabe was 12, he ran away from home because of bad relationships he had with his stepmother. With a few other boys, he left Kanyaru his hometown to Kayanza and next to Gitega \u201cwhen we were at Gitega, it took some time for us to get used to the city-like environment, we spent few months over there before heading to Kigali where we heard life would be better,\u201d Dusabe remembers. But Kigali was a bad experience to him and 6 months later he crossed the border back to Burundi; his journey finally ended up in Bujumbura. He was 14 and dreaming about easy life, money and freedom \u201cI have been in the streets of Bujumbura for over 6 years; and now I don\u2019t want to live like this anymore. When I came I was very young and thought the city would give me better living conditions and job opportunities\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dusabe says life in the street is not easy \u201cI guard parked cars and the owners give me how much they want and they don\u2019t sometimes pay me at all. At night, I sleep on the flat roof of a travel agency. When we get enough money we go to Bwiza to eat a decent meal; otherwise, we look for food in dustbins, the main reason why I always get sick. I often get intestinal worms, and if it\u2019s not that I have malaria. When we fall sick we have no one to take care of us, I only count on some friends who can bring me clean water and for the rest it\u2019s God\u2019s will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dusabe says that street children are used to crossing borders, often thinking that the bigger the city the better their lifestyle would be. \u201cMy older brother is working in Kenya, but when he first arrived there he was a street child just like me and now he has a job. He came back to take me with him last year but I was too sick to follow him as I had Kwashiorkor. He gave me money and left. I don\u2019t know when I am going to see him again,\u201d he also points out.<\/p>\n

When asked why he doesn\u2019t go back home, Dusabe gives one reason: \u201cbecause of money. We don\u2019t get enough money to go back home. The little we get we use it to eat, which is the reason why saving enough money to buy a simple bus ticket can take years. Some of us don\u2019t even remember where we came from because we were very young when we arrived, or they don\u2019t know if our families are still alive or moved somewhere else.\u201d
\nThe only hope for Dusabe and the other street children grownups is the help of a Good Samaritan \u201cBut it\u2019s hard, we don\u2019t look like small children anymore and people don\u2019t have any pity or compassion towards us. They think we are all drug addicts. I want to go back home, there\u2019s no future in the street.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Dusabe is asked what he needs to start his life again, he answers sober mindedly \u201cI am older now, and even though I didn\u2019t go to school, I am intelligent enough to know that I will not become a big boss.\u201d Dusabe laughs before adding more seriously \u201cIf I get enough money, like 100,000 francs, I would be able to go back home and start a business. I want to be like those street vendors you see on the way to Rwanda when you are travelling on the bus. They make enough money to live decently, they even get married. But 100,000 francs are a big sum of money, now I only wish to have some clothes to put on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dusabe says that going back home is the main topic of discussion among street children grownups; they also talk about interesting stories about their friends who succeeded at home. From a street child to a street vendor, Dusabe sees a big difference: his own business offering him a span of opportunities for a secured future, and a home where to get back after a long day of working hard.<\/p>\n

\"Aimable<\/a>

Aimable Barandagiye, Chairman of FENADEB\u201c[\u2026] there is nothing good in the street for a homeless child.\u201d \u00a9Iwacu<\/p><\/div>There are organizations like Children Defense Organization (OPDE), PNUD and \u2018Enfants Soleil\u2019 whose mission is the psychosocial care, social rehabilitation of the young men who grew up in the street as well as vocational training to give them a chance to get a proper job.
\n\u201cEven if our organization can\u2019t fully take charge of children over 18 years old, we do give them minimal medical care because they often get malaria and intestinal worms due to their poor living conditions; they sometimes get injured from car accidents when cars run over them and we treat their wounds. These activities are very expensive but we try to do our best,\u201d says Aimable Barandagiye the Chairman of the National Federation of Associations for Childhood in Burundi (FENADEB). \u201cThey are our allies in the mission to raise awareness among young newcomers; they tell the younger ones that they also had delusional ideas when they left home, and that there is nothing good in the street for a homeless child.\u201d He concludes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One may not recognize them while driving around the town or trying to find a car parking station. Most of the young men who are looking after people\u2019s cars in exchange of a little sum of money, are the ones who used to be street children who are now adults. They have grown up. What […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[36,581],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}