Satus Dignus Child Rescue Initiative: Providing opportunities for street children

1679
Adedayo Emmanuel
Kolade Alamu was only 13 years old when he began making about N30,000 monthly.
Though unskilled, he made more money than his mother, a petty trader.

Oyo State government where he resides pays its workers N18,000 minimum wage while a bag of rice, a staple food in Nigeria sells for about N15,500 per bag, far from the reach of many poor homes.

The former pupil of St. John’s Primary School, Ibadan left home to fend for himself and his sick mother and got neck-deep in child labour.

“My dad left home and my mother had to cater for the family until she took ill,” Kolade said.

The situation pushed him into the market where he eked out a living to support the home. “I used to rent wheel barrow to carry load for people in the market at Iwo road bus terminus in Ibadan. I could make N3,000 or N3,500 sometimes but on a day when there is no patronage I could just make as little as N1,500,” he narrated.

On what he does with his money, Kolade said, “I used to take money home to help with feeding, but it got to a time I wasn’t going home to sleep any longer. I was then sleeping in a shopping complex. Myself and other street children would retire to the complex at about 9:30pm and spread cartons on the floor and sleep, next day we would go to struggle again.

A female care giver instructing a girl

“There was a woman who used to sell snacks in the market, I used to give her my money to keep for me,” he narrated. But Kolade was duped and got discouraged after much savings.

“It got to a time I didn’t see the woman in the market again. I was worried about how to keep my money, so I started keeping it myself and hoping the woman would return. After two weeks, I was told she had relocated and that was how I lost the money I worked for,” he sighed.

Luck later shone on him when some social workers interested in rehabilitating street children came to the market. “On a Monday morning I woke up and went to the market to resume work as usual. I saw some people and they said they were from SDCRI. They went to meet our chairman in the market. He called us and asked if we would follow them. Seven of us agreed and we were taken to the police station to be registered. They contacted our parents and that was how I followed them, got rehabilitated here in 2017. I’m now in JS3,” he relayed.

Now a chess player, Kolade said he learnt chess at the home and represented Oyo State at the national youth chess championship held at the University of Ilorin last year.

“Mr. Bode, the manager of the program here taught us to play chess. We went to play at the championship in Ilorin. The team from Delta State defeated us the first day but we equalized the next day. It was a good experience for me because while in the streets nobody could have tutored me to play chess,” he said.

Other street children may not be as lucky and this is why the figure of Nigerian children out of school keeps soaring.

Recently the United Nations Organisation revealed that about 12 million children are out of school in Nigeria. This is a potential danger because having a huge population of children out of school means 12 million illiterate adults in the near future. It is certain that a chunk of this population may end up abusing drugs and constitute nuisance to the society while some may be victims of ritual killings, child trafficking and abuse.

Wale Okunola is another child living at the Satus Dignus Children Home, Ibadan.

Okunola is a product of a broken home fending for himself before he was rescued from the streets.

Bamigboye, founder, Satus Dignus

“My father is from Ijebu while my mother is from Ibadan. I got here February 2 2018. There was nothing at home after my father abandoned us for another woman. My mother had nothing to take care of us. Feeding was difficult,” he relayed.

Continuing, Wale now 17 said, “Feeding was in the hand of God. My elder ones would go to work, if they brought anything home, we would eat else we slept in hunger. Later I reasoned that I should also go into the street to fend for myself and my mother.”

That was when he began in the streets, picking metals for sale. “I started picking metals for sale,” he said.

“A kilogram is sold for N50. I did that for some time before leaving home totally. I used to make about N2,000 or N2,500 daily. Any day I didn’t pick much I could make N1,200,” he explained.

Wale who is resuming school in September also talked about his father.

“My dad is in Shagamu. He doesn’t come home again because he has another wife and we fend for ourselves. We are six of us. My mum used to sell things but now she is sick and can’t come out again to trade.”

Meanwhile, not all the children rescued from the streets end up staying at the Satus Dignus Child Rescue Centre.

“I came in here with Wariz and Quadri but Quadri has absconded from here,” he said.

Wariz Hassan is another child who the home has greatly influenced. According to him, he was already introduced to hemp in the streets. The 14 year old escaped to the streets from a Koranic school where he was being maltreated along with other children.

“My father and mother separated and my mother, a Togolese returned to Togo with my younger brother leaving me with dad,” he narrated.

“My father married another wife and she had four children. They were maltreating me and my father went to drop me at the Koranic centre at Ojoo where the suffering continued,” he lamented.

It was from the Koranic centre he went into the streets. “I escaped into the streets and took to begging for alms to survive. I was making between N800 and N1,500 daily with which I used to eat and smoke hemp until child workers came to fetch some of us who were willing to follow them,” he narrated further.

Bamigboye with some of the children

Bamigboye with some of the children

Founder of the centre, Biodun Bamgboye is passionate about the condition of street children scattered around Nigeria.

She stated that the dream of establishing a centre for homeless children had been with her for over 30 years.

“It is an idea I have had for a very long time. Since I was growing up I had known I would work with children. Seeing children begging in the streets as a teenager used to touch me so much and I knew I wanted to either adopt children or take care of children one way or the other,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Belgian-based Nigerian had thought about adopting children but since that would not achieve her desired result she considered another option to reach disadvantaged children.

“Over the years I have thought about this dream and thought that if I have to adopt children I won’t reach as many as I would want so I decided to look into the area that many won’t want to think about. Seeing children living in the streets is pathetic in a rich country like ours,” she said.

Worried about the insecurity in the country, Ms. Bamgboye said every homeless child taken off the street is a way of reducing the security problem in the country though her organisation can’t go further than the available fund.

“With the growing security problem in Nigeria every potential murderer, armed robber, thief, kidnapper taken off from the path of crime is one way of solving the security problem in the society.

“Children not taken care of today are security risk to the nation in future. Unfortunately, the extent to which we can go depends on the funds we have as we don’t have any corporate funding,” she said.

Talking more about funding, she said the home has a conservative monthly budget of about N400,000 which she raises from friends and personal income.

“We want to take as many children as possible off the streets but what we have now can’t cope with the need because we don’t have the capacity. We depend on gifts especially from personal funds, personal and Facebook friends.

“Our operations are run on a very low budget because we don’t have corporate funders. That is our greatest problem and the biggest limitation we have,” she lamented.

With adequate funding she hopes to be able to take more children off the streets and perhaps open more homes. “Here in Ibadan alone, not exaggerating and being conservative, we have no fewer than 10,000 children in the streets; boys and girls. Some of them from the ages of five are already being used as sex slaves. The boys are the touts, they are being taught to steal and sometimes work for bigger gangs. Some of them have been recruited from as young as seven years old and already built and trained in a life of crime,” she explained from her field experience.

Bamgboye however pointed that parental issues often sends the children to the streets going by some of the cases being handled at the centre.

“We once had a temporary case of a teenage girl. Her case was that of abusive issues between her and her stepmother. She ran to Ibadan from Ilorin. Somebody just found her sleeping in front of their shop and alerted our staff. We talked to her and were able to trace her family in Ilorin.

“The Father came here to the home and she accepted to follow him. We have been talking with her family to find out how she is, and she is fine where she is, she said.”

In many other cases, the children are confronted with neglect and rejection by their parents and other family members who have already labelled them as bad and useless children.

“The only thing we can do is to counsel the children to live above that pain of being rejected by their parents which is the pain that affects children so much. We keep on with this and show them love,” she said.

Talking about the daily activities of the children in the home, Ms. Bamgboye said there is timetable of activities both during school time and during the holidays.

“Chess is an integral part of the home’s activities. They are also members of the chess club where they are very active, she said.
About their religious activities, she said the children are from various religious backgrounds and the home which is secular gives room for freedom of worship.
Explaining further, she said, “During the fasting period for instance the Muslims fasted and we made sure that the program of the home was adjusted so that the children that wanted to could fast: they woke up early to take their morning meals and in the evening we made provisions for them to break their fast with fruits before their normal meals.

“Those who are Christians among them go to church on Sundays. We work with a Baptist church here in Ibadan and they have been very helpful. One of the Baptist church members volunteered to take the children in bead making at her own cost.

“The church also has been very supportive. For the past two months they have been donating half bag of rice to us and on Sunday mornings they come to pick the children and bring them back after service.” She said.

Expressing her fear over other religious bodies coming in to help, she however appreciated the Baptist Church who she said has never tried to hijack the project.

“I am really happy with the Baptist church we are working with. They have not tried to take over the project or turn it into a Baptist project and that is my fear in introducing it to churches here in Ibadan.

“What if a church insists in having it as a church project while the organization is designed to be a secular organization? Will part of the program be to be preaching Christ to everybody to become a Christian? We want our children to understand that all the faiths can live together and be peaceful without quarreling with one another.

“We don’t want a case where they would hear that one is bad and one is good or that one is superior to the other. That is the fear. I also don’t want any church to come to the centre with the intention of conducting deliverance for the children. I’m particular that there are no negative pronunciations made concerning these children. These are my worries. There are only few churches that can still maintain that neutrality,” She explained.

Adeyinka Popoola is one of the caregivers who explained how interesting it is working with children fresh from the streets.

“I’m a caregiver in the home. We are here to put the children in order we know they are coming from the streets. We work to put things in order and make the home conducive for them to live in,” she said.

Talking about the parents, Popoola said the home is in touch with some of the parents who are happy that their children are doing well.
She however narrated how two of the girls earlier absconded.

“We have this little girl who her mother is physically challenged. She had an elder sister aged 14 here too who later absconded two months ago at midnight scaling the fence.

“We informed the police and efforts to bring them back were not successful. The father came here and said that is how she has been leaving home. They are back to the streets and it is pathetic,” she said.

She added that, “It was gathered that one of them had earlier left home for the streets at 11 and was already addicted to certain substances.

“We have an initial induction program for three months, taking them through sex education, and implications of drug abuse. We also begin to teach the children basic reading and numeracy skills in this period to prepare them to fit into school.”

Rescuing children from the streets may not be an easy task and rehabilitating them as well is tougher. This is because some of these children are already used to making money which they spend to fuel their acquired delinquencies.

The implication of having over 10,000 street children in a single city may go beyond what the entire nation could handle.

Therefore the relevant government agencies, religious institutions and families must team up to prevent issues creating street children.

If this is not done, in the near future, the number of street children would definitely soar to further endanger the security in the nation and beyond.

Kindly support the growth of journalism in Nigeria

Reactions to stories published can be sent to us at [email protected]


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *