Our work in East Africa
Having established our work in East Africa, over the last year we’ve been focusing on developing our programmes further so we can reach more children. We’re very excited that we’ve recently committed to expand our operations in the region so that we can have an even more positive impact than we ever have previously.
Over the last 3 years Railway Children has partnered 2 organisations in Kenya and 1 in Tanzania. In 2008 we funded a survey of children and young people on the streets of Mwanza, the second largest city in Tanzania. We discovered that of 443 children surveyed on the streets, 393 of them sleep on the streets every night. As a result, this year we’ve invested in an additional project in Mwanza to meet the needs of these children.
In addition, in partnership with the organisation Adilisha we’re currently running a pilot project working with the children on the streets, their families, and the community. Our strategy includes systematic street work to engage children with the project, and encouragement of parents and families in communities from which runaways originated to be more involved in the care of children. Wherever possible we hope to create an environment conducive for children to return home. We’re also working to raise community awareness on child protection issues.
This 12 month pilot project focuses on reaching 50 children and re-integrating them with their families. The project will take place over 6 wards of the Ilemela & Nyamagana districts, with 18 community trainers helping parents to improve their parenting skills. At the end of the pilot in March 2010, we’ll step back and evaluate the project, with a view to expanding it to other cities in Tanzania.
To help us understand what is really needed and to develop our East African strategy further, an exchange visit took place in autumn 2008 between our East African partners, Undugu Society and Mkombozi and our Latin American partners, Juconi and Casa Allianza. The aim of the exchange was the sharing of ideas and knowledge that could be adopted by other projects. The programme proved to be extremely successful and has enabled our African partners to learn from established and proven ways of delivering positive outcomes for children. As always, we continue to look for ways to develop on-going learning by identifying ideas and opportunities that will help us to run broader programme designs in future.
As part of our commitment to drive our work forward, we're in the process of registering Railway Children as a legal entity Tanzania which will allow us to increase our presence. We’ll be establishing an East African office and employing local staff to deliver a wider and more comprehensive programme than ever before.
In September 2009, Railway Children’s National Research and Strategy Manager embarked on qualitative research exploring the experiences of children alone on the streets in Kenya and Tanzania. The project, delivered in conjunction with our partners Undugu Society and Mkombozi, involves talking to children and project workers over a six week period, followed by a period of analysis. We’re looking forward to the results which will be published in 2010, and will give us the information to ensure that Railway Children is better placed to continually develop more effective intervention based on the needs of children.
In addition, there are exciting plans for Railway Children to agree partnerships with two further organisations, one in Kenya and one in Tanzania over the next twelve months.
