Street Action - Committed to street children through action and partnership

Action for Children in Conflict (AfCiC) is based in Thika in Kenya. Its focus is on supporting some of the most disadvantaged, disenfranchised and socially excluded children and young people in Kenya.

The children they work with come from backgrounds of abject poverty, family breakdown and abuse - both verbal and physical. AfCiC deals directly with situations where children are in conflict with the law, living and working in the streets and have little or no access to formal education. Like the street children described at Umthombo, many resort to substance abuse as a means of escaping the cold and hunger which pervade their daily lives.

AfCiC believe that these children and young people have the capacity to change their own lives for the better, and it is the role of grassroots organisations, rooted in the local community, to nurture this process. AfCiC works alongside the children and young people, helping to transform them into responsible individuals and productive members of their community, and empowering them to make positive decisions about their futures.

AfCiC's main goal is to keep children in their families or to return them there if they have left home for the streets. Improving circumstances at home is the key to ensuring that children remain with their families and off the streets in the long-term. Their work to this end is varied, but includes;

• Providing parenting skills training to elderly relatives struggling to bring up difficult children.
• Helping single mothers to access financial support from absent fathers.
• Helping impoverished parents to set up their own income generating projects and to become financially independent.

The AfCiC Interim Care Centre

Children at AfCiC's Interim Care Centre undertake 6 month rehabilitation programmes, where children are referred by a combination of their Outreach Programmes, the District Children's Office, Municipal Council and other community stakeholders. As an examples of the success of this centre, between January & July 2008, 25 boys undertook rehabilitation in the centre and of these;

• 16 have been successfully settled at home and are in school.
• 3 have been successfully referred and entered into children's homes locally (one a specialist centre for those who are HIV+).
• 1 is in a boarding special school for the deaf and mute, but has been successfully placed at home during the holidays.
• 2 have returned to the centre after continued problems at home and they are trying new strategies to assist them and their families.

This video provides some more background to some of the boys who are helped by AfCiC, as well as some of the schemes that AfCiC provides to get children and young people back into a life away away from the streets.

Street Action is partnering with AfCiC to support the development of their work with street children, and we would love your support to help AfCiC continue their work.