Contents
Program objectives
One of the major causes of children migrating to the streets of Thika town from surrounding areas is the lack of recreational activities within their communities, especially within the slum area of Kiandutu just outside Thika town, home to an estimated 50,000 residents. This results in children having a surplus of idle time on their hands, which research has shown leads to a higher possibility of them spending time on the streets where they are vulnerable to substance abuse, prostitution and spread of HIV/AIDS, begging and crime, often at the instigation of older children or adult criminals.
"One of the essential conditions for the effective exercise of human rights is that everyone should be free to develop and preserve his or her physical, intellectual, and moral powers, and that access to physical education and sport should consequently be assured and guaranteed for all human beings."
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization?s International Charter of Physical Education and Sport
By seeking to address this issue with the implementation of a community-based sports program, we also utilise sport as a vehicle with which to deliver other important social and community education such as life skills, HIV/AIDS and other health information, a lack of which is another major factor contributing to the numbers of street and vulnerable children.
The program will work very closely with local volunteers, community based organisations (CBOs), and other community representatives within the targeted area, with the aim that this program will not be ?owned? by AfCiC or Thika United, but by the community itself. This will help to ensure the success and longevity of the program. At all stages of program development and implementation, local volunteers and community members will be an essential component of every task and decision made.
From the start, youth volunteers drawn from the local community will run the program. This will benefit them, the children they work with and the community in a number of ways. The leadership experience the volunteers gain will be invaluable, and with the addition of future planned leadership and vocational training programs will help to create future community and business leaders. This in turn will act as an incentive for younger children involved in the program, who will be able to look to the example of the older youth volunteers for inspiration.
This community sports initiative compliments and enhances the current street children programs being carried out by Action for Children in Conflict with the support of Thika United Football Club within the Thika area. AfCiC?s experience has shown the importance of working not just with the street child themselves, but also with their family and community in order to affectively address the various issues that lead the child to the street in the first place. This program not only seeks to engage with vulnerable children and their community directly, but can also be used to ?piggy-back? a variety of community and capacity building initiatives where they are needed most, at the local community level.