November 1, 2002
By Bongani Majola
OTHANDWENI, Zulu for place of love, has been selected as one of the six projects to represent South Africa at the Dubai International Awards for Best Practices next year, in recognition of its humanitarian work for youths at risk.
In operation since 1994, Othandweni is a multi-purpose non-profit organisation in Hillbrow that offers food, clothing and practical training to inner city street children. It is one of the projects of the faith-based Metropolitan Evangelical Services and in the forefront of the fight to answer the plight of street children in Johannesburg.
Among its recent achievements, Othandweni has managed to rally several businesses in Braamfontein and Hillbrow to stop selling glue, as part of its anti-drug drive. Available for as little as 50c for a tube, glue is sniffed by the children in the hope of forgetting the grim realities that forced them on to the streets in the first place.
"While we are aware that for these kids glue provides some much needed escape," says Othandweni's job placements co-ordinator Johan Robyn, "we feel glue just does not help either the kids or us welfare workers. Glue-sniffing affects the central nervous system and can lead to paralysis, so any shop selling glue to children is guilty of harmful malicious practices. We applaud the decision by these businesses."
Together with Saber Manjoo, a Braamfontein shopowner, Robyn has embarked on crusade to get the particular glue sniffed by street children off the shelves. "Nobody really uses this glue to stick anything," Manjoo offers in a serious tone. "The steel bond glue is used especially by the street kids. I realised this late in my shop when I saw that I was selling more and more of it."
The two have drafted a petition and have started to canvass signatures from inner city businesses, to commit them to take the glue off the shelves. When they have enough signatures, they intend taking up the sticky matter with Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa.
However, as Robyn soberly reminds us, glue is not the only matter that should stick out when dealing with street children; "we need the support of the public in long term street children issues".
Othandweni is one of only two organisations in Johannesburg that help girls living on the streets and train them in entrepreneurial skills. Eleven of the girls are currently with a group of 19 boys on a 14-day personal development course.
The Outward Bound course introduces students to adventure sports, builds teamwork and equips them with knowledge of water sports and essential survival skills. "It is the last aspect of our comprehensive training, after which they get evaluated by an external supervisor and, if they pass, obtain certificates," says head trainer Siphiwe Dlamini.
Clearly, Othandweni's war of ridding the streets of Johannesburg of begging children is wide-ranging, and it is being fought on many fronts by a host of welfare soldiers.
Othandweni's outreach workers, Thoko Masondo and Wilson Mdlalose, are right there in the street trenches. Their work involves persuading the street children to change their life of wandering and begging and to do something meaningful for themselves.
Armed with the motto: "Uplifting the deprived youth for a better tomorrow", Masondo and Mdlalose take to the streets of Hillbrow daily, inviting the children not to move in, bag and baggage, but just to drop in for breakfast, lunch and a shower. There are such facilities for more than 100 children, and once they are at Othandweni the outreach workers try to persuade them to change their lives for the better. The goal, depending on the child and the situation, is either reunion with their families or training to become independent individuals.
If street children are the culprits for petty crimes in the inner city streets of Hillbrow and Berea, then one needs to feel safe in the company of Masondo. Not only does she inspire respect and reverence from the kids, they see her as the mother they never had, indeed the mother they ran away from at home, even as they desperately need her in the impersonal streets of Johannesburg.
"Mama Thoko!" they greet her as she trudges along the narrow passages of Hillbrow, where they hang out. Today is another outreach day for Othandweni, and "we are inviting the kids to come and listen to ex-drug addicts, church leaders and social workers talk about the dangers of taking drugs, including glue-sniffing".
The highlight of today's work is a performance by Muka, a drama group of ex-street children who are eager to preach the gospel of change to their fellow street dwellers, as well as serve as much-needed role models.
Having agreed to change their lives, children are then enrolled at Othandweni's entrepreneurial development school, Olwazini (place of knowledge), where they are trained in skills in business, literacy, creative art, practical bakery and general life skills.
Here at Olwazini, says Dlamini, students graduate with, among other skills, with the ability to bake, to draw, to work tasks in a team and "ultimately with the ability to stand on their own".
"We aim to instil total independence, but those who successfully complete our course go on to job placements, where we actively seek employment for them based on the training that they would have undergone."
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