Serving Homeless Girls

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RETHINKING OUR VIEWS ON GIRLS WHO ONCE LIVED ON THE STREETS

Nomusa Khumalo (child and youth care worker at Tennyson House girls shelter) shares her heart and challenges us on how people treat girls who lived on the streets for some time. 

Ever heard, or personally used language like “they cannot be trusted”, “they come from the streets”; “they smell bad”; or “I want to serve young people in need, but not them, because they don’t deserve help because they chose to live on the streets”.

Nomusa shares that girls in the shelter, who once lived on the street must not be judged this way.  “They were not born on the streets, they were born into a family and also once lived in a home with a family”, expresses Nomusa.  This statement certainly makes one think on how we communicate verbally and nonverbally to young people who are living on the streets, or once lived on the streets.

Romans 5v 6-8.  Christ saw us in our sin, and chose to demonstrate His love for us, by dying on the Cross for us.  Christ saw our worth when nothing about us was good or deserving.

Nomusa smiles as she speaks about the young girls.  She looks beyond the now, and sees their potential as she and the team demonstrate love.  The work is challenging and behaviour change does not happen overnight, it takes time, but the positive change is evident and possible!  Providing support and a developmental structure within the shelter enables girls to grow positively in all spheres of their lives. 

Please continue to pray for the girls at Tennyson House shelter and for the staff, and volunteers who serve them that love and respect would multiply in each one.

 

ABUSE CASE VERIFICATION AND REFERRAL

We met a 15year old child on the streets and she communicated she was from Pine Town.  She told us she had run away from home due to physical and verbal abuse by her father.  The Outreach team then organised a visit to her home, to observe her home situation first hand.   The parents both denied any form of abuse. The team left their contact details with the mother, should the family require further assistance.  After some time, the mother called the Outreach Team, confirming that her daughter was abused physically and verbally.  The team then referred the matter to FAMSA.

 

A physically abused girl finds refuge at Tennyson House

The South African Police Services drove into our premises with a girl that they had rescued from a very difficult and dangerous situation.  Busiswa was badly beaten by her brother and his girlfriend. She has deep septic wounds on her head, arm and hand.  She was in terrible pain and could not do things for herself – i.e. bath.  Staff at Tennyson House gave her a bath and redressed her wounds.  She was taken to hospital and admitted for 4 weeks.  Staff visited her in hospital and even made efforts to visit her when they were off duty.  Busiswa recovered and went back to the shelter.  She had some plastic surgery that was offered free of charge at the hospital.  After a few lifeskill sessions, a staff member took Busiswa in as a foster child.  She is now going to school and in Grade 10.  The Aftercare team are working the case, making sure that her rights are respected.  Her case was closed due to lack of evidence, but Tennyson House staff reinstated the case through Department of Justice.

 

OUTREACH TEAM FAMILY

Nonhlanhla was in our care when living on the streets.  She battled and was off the streets for some time, and then back on the streets again.  She fell pregnant in 2006 and gave birth to Thobani who is three years old.  Thobani was born HIV positive, because his mother did not attend antenatal clinic while she was pregnant. In that way Thobani was affected by the virus.  He was very sick and was admitted to Addington hospital and then moved to Chief Albert Luthuli hospital for a specialist. The Outreach team had to give the hospital permission to give the child ARV’s since the mother was could not be located.  Thobani became very ill and the hospital sent him to the Edith Benson children. In the same week Happy (Outreach Co-ordinator) received a call from the hospital that Thobani would not live longer than a month. During this time YFC/KZN prayed much for this child.  After a month, the social worker at Addington Hospital called to tell us that Thobani was discharge, and had moved to Edith Benson. He was in and out from the hospital, and began to grow slowly.  After a year, the team received such great feedback that Thobani was crawling, and began walking and trying to speak. It is so sad that his mother and the other family members never visited Thobani. They don’t know him and they will not recognize him if they meet him. The Outreach team continues to visit him so that he will know that there are some people out there who love and care for him.

 

NEVER GIVE UP ON PEOPLE

Sindi who was in our shelter programme since the beginning of this year, was successfully reunited with her family. The shelter staff struggled with Sindi’s behaviour.  Once they realised that Sindi had deep issues of anger and resentment, the breakthrough began.   Her case was referred to the Intensive Interventions Program. On her first counselling session, Sindi shared her life story.
Whilst Sindi was living on the streets we went for Voluntary Counselling and Testing and discovered that she is HIV positive.  She was carrying a lot of anger and resentment. 
Sindi turned to life on the streets when she learnt that her mother had abandoned her when she was 3 months old.  Sindi had lived with her grandmother, who she thought was her mother. 

Sindi’s behaviour in shelter started to improve soon after that first counselling session with the case manager. In the following sessions, Sindi began to speak of her desire to return home and go back to school.   Sindi was reunited with her granny two months ago and has gone back to school. The granny informed us that Sindi was abandoned by her mother because she was HIV positive, but the granny had never informed Sindi of her status.  We have since received a report that Sindi is doing very well at school, and is well behaved at home with her granny. This confirms for us the importance of never giving up on young people. fin.

 

I’M DETERMINED TO LEAVE LIFE ON THE STREETS

A young girl was admitted into the shelter earlier this year after she approached the outreach team for an alternative to life on the streets. This girl told the outreach team members that she had been begging on the streets for years since she was a little girl and was tired of that life. Her mother had been the one who got her started on this life on the street by taking her to the streets to beg.
The outreach team workers referred this girls’ case to the shelter and she was thereafter admitted to the shelter.  After some time this young girl wanted to return to her home.  This was much earlier than the plan as the shelter staff still needed to do some work with her mother before returning her home. This brave young girl, provided a solution to this ‘problem’ by suggesting she be taken to her aunt instead of her mother, as her mother will want her to return to the streets to make money.
She had only been in the shelter for two months when she made this decision and was taken to live with her aunt. There has been follow-up done for her recently and she is still happy at home with her aunt. fin.

 

The girls in the shelter have been participating in the series of weekly workshops on Self Image. These workshops have been facilitated by a Dutch lady who is currently working with the budding artists in the music industry in Durban.
These series of workshops took the girls through the journey of discovering themselves and their own worth and value. The workshops also equipped the girls with various skills like self-reflection and journaling. We trust that the skills developed would equip the girls for their future, and any challenges they would face regarding their self image. fin.

 

For the past two years, the child and youth care workers in the shelter have been searching for one of the girls’ relatives. Unfortunately there were no promising leads. This girl came into our care last year after she had absconded from the foster care home, where she had been placed by the local social workers. The social workers had failed to locate this girl’s biological family/relatives and then placed her with a foster care family. After she came into the shelter from the streets we then tried to reunify her with her foster family but to no avail. She continued running away until we decided to take her back into the shelter this year. Several incidents happened this month, which provided us with sufficient leads to locate the maternal grandmother for this girl. We can put all this down to God’s work at hand because of the way all the leads connected. Praise God, this girl now has a family she can go to at the end of the year when the reunification process has been finalised. fin.

 

The support group for mothers, which was set up in one of the communities that Tennyson House works in, has been growing from strength to strength.
The group has finally secured small plots of land and started planting the vegetables.

Their initial projects of sewing and beadwork are going well. The women are now realising the need for them to be able to read and write; and have since expressed this as their next goal to be achieved in the future. They are now making preparations to register at the nearest ABET (Adult Basic Education and Training) centre. fin.

 

The community team has been struggling for a while to find a venue to facilitate activities with the young people in one of the communities that they work in. The community workers approached one of the local churches with a proposal to use the church as the venue for afternoon activities. After some negotiations with the church leadership, an agreement was reached for the community workers to start using the church on Monday to Friday afternoons for the activities with the young people. The young people are now becoming familiar with the routine of the afternoon activities and their attendance is improving. This is an opportunity for us to reach more young people in this community than we had previously when we were just attending to individual cases. We are thankful for this venue and trust God for his blessing on the activities. fin.

 

The story of a young girl with a child who was living alone and very sick was brought to our attention late last year by one of the community members. The community workers managed to get her into the Hospice because she was in need of care. She was also assisted to apply for the Social Grant by the community workers and her child has been placed at the children’s home. Although it is sad that they are no longer living together as they used to, it is great to report that they are both receiving good care and have a safe shelter. fin.

 

A new support group for mothers has been started in one of the communities that Tennyson House works in. A couple from Holland, who were overseas volunteers in Tennyson House in 2007, contributed financially in order for this support group to be initiated.

This support group seeks to address the issues of poverty due to high rates of unemployment in the community. These mothers come together to use their creativity and skills in beadwork and sewing to make saleable items which can generate an income for the group.

Other exciting plans are in the pipeline for this support group, such as starting vegetable gardening as soon as they are able to secure appropriate plots of land in their communities.

The latest group of girls in the shelter are settling in well and adjusting to their new school and home life. However one of the girls that had just been reunified with her family in December lost her mother in February. The Tennyson House staff were in the process of finalising a referral for the mother to attend a Hospice, so she could get access to treatment, when she passed away. God has provided in various ways and made it possible to support this girl and her family during such a difficult time.

Miss Shangase, a member of the community of Amatikwe, approached our program for assistance. She has seven orphans staying at her home and needs all the assistance she can get in terms of food and school needs. By using the resources available to us, we are able to supply regular meals, through or food (briyane) program, help with some of the stationary needs of her children and also provide food parcels when ever we have food available. Miss Shangase has told us that she really appreciates this because it has made a big difference in the lives of her children.