Who’ll shed a tear for Kenya's abused kids?

Rashid ( inset) was among six people who were killed by Boda Boda riders at Kabiria within Riruta on allegations that they had broken into a shop and stole bottles of drinking water. LocalAid and Maisha Poa Centre will hold a candlelit vigil at the Riruta Stadium in honour of the six boys. The event will provide a platform for Kenya’s street children to speak out for their rights. PHOTO| EVANS HABIL

What you need to know:

  • The coldblooded killing of six youngsters in Riruta, Nairobi, in February on suspicion that they were thieves  is symptomatic of a society that does not care enough for its children.
  • The government, as well as society, should find ways of preventing children from running to the streets as this makes them easy targets for abuse. And where abuse has occurred, action should be taken against the culprits.

“Every time I close my eyes, I see them screaming for help. I see innocent blood. Silas, Felix, Ayub, Joseph, John and Rashidi I promise you, I will not just shed tears for the injustices you have faced. I will reach out to Kenyans to end these injustices. Rest in peace Angels,” Sumer Homeh, the executive director of LocalAid, a non-profit organisation that rehabilitates street children in Nairobi, says firmly.

The six boys to whom she makes the promise met their death early in the  morning of February 27 this year in Riruta, on the outskirts of Nairobi. An angry mob, mainly boda boda riders, herded them into a corner of their single-room, corrugated iron shack and clobbered them to death using metal bars, stones and wooden planks on the suspicion that they had broken into a roadside kiosk and  stolen soda and drinking water. 

The teenagers — Christopher Mwaura, Felix Mbugua, Ayub Mureu, Rashid Cuba, John Kamau and Silas Odipo were not given time to defend themselves.

“The room was like a slaughterhouse. There was blood all over,” David Njoroge, the owner of the rental shack where the boys slept, was reported as saying.

The youngsters would spend their nights in the room and go to the Maisha Poa Centre during the day to eat. On the fateful night, they were returning home after watching a movie at the Riruta Shopping Centre. It was past 10pm.

Ms Homeh and Kennedy Ochieng’, who also works with LocalAid, interacted with the boys closely as they identified those among them they could rescue and rehabilitate.

Homeh, 35, says the incident was traumatising. “It is something that I would want to forget. Their deaths broke my heart. Felix had a mother. If I feel the way I am, I don’t know what his mother is going through. I am yet to talk to her about it but I cannot imagine how she is feeling,” she says.

So this Saturday, LocalAid and Maisha Poa Centre will hold a vigil for the boys.

“Whereas most of society looks at street children as dirty, criminals and thugs, to me these boys are rubies and diamonds. They appreciate everything you give them. They are rare gems, and they are not bad, as most people believe. It is sad to say that society and the community does not look at them kindly,” she laments.

Ms Homeh is concerned about the silence following the youths’ deaths.

RIGHT TO SURVIVE

“A month has past and no one is talking about the killings. It is worrying that the government can hear such an incident being reported in the media and do nothing about it. Somebody has to be responsible and honour these kids. It is not right that the life of a valuable member of society can be taken in such a manner,” she  remarks. “The public saw it right to kill them through mob justice for  “stealing drinking” water. How can we have such injustice for a basic need that was never provided for these boys in the first place?

She notes that the Children’s Act tasks the government with safeguarding the rights and welfare of children adding, “Their first right is survival, yet they struggle every day to survive on the streets. Then this right is taken away from them.

“I am saying so because some of my boys hold responsible positions, such as school and class prefects. One of them has even gone to Tanzania to represent Kenya in football tournaments. They have great potential. However, despite all this, the six were not given a chance to live.”

She says everyone in authority needs to investigate and respond rapidly to crimes against children in order to end the silence over the deaths of innocent children on the streets.

“It is the role of each one of us to end these injustices against children. What is being done by LocalAid and Maisha Poa Centre is not enough. With more than 450,000 street children, Kenya needs to take an active role in discouraging the children from running to the streets,” she says.

She suggests that families, especially  middle-class ones, can take some of these children into foster care. They can be enrolled in boarding school, and will, therefore need to spend only a little time during the school holidays with these families. That way, it would take only a few years to change a child’s life.

Organisations in the private sector can also come in to sponsor these children and have them placed with charitable organisations, Ms Homeh suggests.

She says families should prevent children from running to the streets in the first place. “We need to encourage kinship within families so that orphaned children can be taken care of within the family,” she says.

Programmes that empower single mothers and enable them to take care of their children will also help prevent children from running to the streets, she adds.

LocalAid CEO, Sumer Homeh with some of the rehabilitated street chlidren at the home in Ruai. PHOTO | COURTESY

TWO WRONGS

Ms Homeh avers that getting involved in the lives of street children will also solve the problem of insecurity. “If these children are managed well, institutionalised and put through school, they will avoid bad company that might see them retrogress from petty crimes – like stealing drinking water and soda from kiosks – to violent robberies. Kenyans, the solution is in our hands,” she appeals.

“Mob justice is injustice and takes Kenya backwards when we have laws in place. Members of the public should not take the law into their own hands, as two wrongs do not make a right.

“The root cause of mob justice in Kenya is mainly because the community is angry. They have seen their own being robbed, injured and even killed. In most cases when they report such incidents to the police, the suspects are rarely prosecuted.

“The government and those in authority have to step in because if this scenario is not fixed, mob justice will only get worse. The citizens also have a duty to report any incident to the police and follow the witnesses up to the prosecution. To me, speaking up against mob justice is a fight for these children.”

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Candlelight vigil for the six 

ON SATURDAY, APRIL 16,  LocalAid and Maisha Poa Centre will hold a candlelit vigil at the Riruta Stadium in honour of the six boys. “This will show our respect for the lives of Silas, Felix, Ayub, Joseph, John and Rashidi,” says Sumer.

The event will provide a platform for Kenya’s street children to speak out for their rights, Homeh says. Other activities include a feeding outreach, a football tournament,  and an art exhibition by former and current street children.

“I am calling upon individuals and organisations to stand up for the thousands of innocent lives that are ignored, beaten, abused and senselessly murdered on the streets,” says Homeh. Individuals and organisations can donate money, as well as foodstuff, clothing, shoes and bedding to support these children.

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If they were to go back to the streets, I would go with them

CEO and founder of Local Aid Sumer Homeh on April 8, 2016. PHOTO | ANTHONY OMUYA

 

 “AS A YOUNG CHILD, I would cry myself to sleep whenever I watched international television channels with images of young children suffering in third world countries. Mostly, it would be an emaciated child as a result of famine, disease, and untold poverty.

“Growing up in Sydney, Australia, I was surrounded by loving parents and three siblings – two brothers and a sister. I had never seen such suffering and I always wondered whether there was no one, including governments, to make life better for these children. The stories touched me so much that, at the age of 15 years, I took up a job and sponsored a little girl from Kenya. I was still in school. I worked as a retailer at a clothing store in Sydney, earning Australian $11 (Sh840) per hour.

“Her name was Jeruto Kibiwott (we later lost contact) and she was from the Rift Valley. I was linked up with her by the Christian Children’s Fund (now ChildFund International) That was in 1996, and we often exchanged letters.

“After five years, the organisation notified me that she and her family had moved from their rural home to Nairobi after one of her parents got a job, so she no longer needed my help.

There was nothing compared to the joy and satisfaction that I felt when I heard this. I couldn’t believe that my My Australian $35 (Sh2,670) a month had made such a difference. I was later linked up with another child from Senegal.

“I had studied fashion design at the university, but I felt the urge to come to Kenya as a volunteer. I had read books about children overcoming challenges in Africa. I had also watched documentaries and admired the resilience in these children, so my desire to come to Kenya and volunteer working with children was more to put a face to these stories. It is as if I wanted that human connection with the people and communities.

“So in 2008 I made my first trip to Kenya and volunteered at a school in Suna in Dagoretti, Nairobi, as an art and design teacher. Here, I met an amazing woman, Josephine Kiarie, a teacher at the school where I was volunteering.

“She would take me round the community, where I met men and women who were struggling with HIV. Only a few could access HIV services and anti-retroviral drugs.

With support from other volunteers and friends, I established LocalAid in 2009, beginning with a small VCT clinic in Dagoretti. We later set up  a laboratory, a pharmacy and a centre for children living with disabilities.

But there was one thing that always struck me. Whenever I interacted with the community, I would see more and more children living on their own on the streets. When I looked around, I realised that no one seemed bothered about them. It seemed like the norm. I always asked myself who would rescue these children.

Inn 2009, I felt I had come to Kenya to serve children in need. I felt I needed  to do something for these children. So on Christmas Day, I organised a meeting with them at the Riruta Stadium and served them lunch.

Meeting them changed my life completely. I could not believe that society could allow these kids to be abused, raped and neglected. I was moved. Something inside me would not allow me to walk away from these children.

LocalAid was just a young, struggling organisation and I did not know how to make life better for them. But I promised them that I would do something.  To be honest, I was not prepared for what was in store. It still remains the most challenging experience in my entire life. As a non-profit organisation depending on goodwill, it was difficult bringing them into our programmes.  A few months later, our main donor called to say he was withdrawing his sponsorship. He was my previous boss and his business had just collapsed. This spelt doom for my ambitions as he was the only one taking care of the rent and main bills.

I could not tell the more than 50 children that I could no longer provide for them. I had to put on a brave face even as we were surviving a day at a time. I was determined that if these children were forced to go back to the streets, I would go with them.

Over the years, the organisation has grown and currently takes care of 62 children, with 48 housed at the New Horizon Family, our home for the children in Ruai. A few of them have completed Form Four.

Only boys live at the home but we have girls in our outreach programme, which supports them when they are living at home. We are planning to put up more facilities to enable us to house both boys and girls in the future.”

 

Donations can be made to LocalAid, Mpesa Till 892705. Join the conversation  on Twitter: #mobinjustice