Street Action - Committed to street children through action and partnership

Umthombo Street Children is a dynamic organisation predominately made up of former street children, trained as child and youth care workers, advocacy officers, administrators and senior leaders. Together with the support of a senior social worker and experienced street children activists Umthombo’s former street children are leading a revolution in the ways street children are being perceived and treated in Durban. Umthombo is leading Durban into a new era of compassionate strategies that reduce the number of children on the streets! It is a fully registered section 21 company, and non-profit organisation. Its head office is in the Embassy Building in Smith Street. Umthombo has two main departments: Umthombo Action and Umthombo Advocacy.

Umthombo Action

This is based on the premise that children living in the streets carry major trauma and therefore empowering children to leave the streets will always be a process.  Umthombo also believes that services to traumatised children must be conducted by trained social workers or child and youth care workers. Umthombo works in the greater Durban area but has a main focus on the Point area of the city where the issue of street children is greatest.

Umthombo has two main goals:

1. To empower children to be able to leave the streets an be reintegrated back into community life (thus reducing the number of children living on the streets.)
2. To provide basic rights to children living on the streets for whom the process of leaving the streets is taking longer.

Umthombo operates 6 grass root programs:

• The Street Outreach Team (Durban Street Team since 1998). Outreach work consists of identifying children on the streets, developing a relationship of trust with them and empowering them to be able to leave the streets.
• The Mobile Health Clinic for Street Children. A fully equipped ambulance with paramedics and senior nurses that provides basic healthcare (and referral for more serious cases) to street children around the city. Children have a right to healthcare even during the process of getting them off the streets.
• The Reintegration and Aftercare Team. A team that prepares street children and their families for reintegration into community life as well as short and long term support and empowerment mechanisms.
• Umthombo Safe Space Therapeutic Centre in Point, Durban. A new concept being launched on December 1st 2008. Social workers and child and youth-care workers will be operating a therapeutic programs space geared towards assisting children to leave the streets. This program is exclusively for children under the age of 18.
• Umthombo Mentoring Program for street youth between the ages of 18-25. One of the big issues on the streets is the fact that because a lack of credible strategies around the issue of street children in the past, there is an alarming number of street adults that grew up on the streets through childhood and now have few ways to survive other than through crime and prostitution. Umthombo has two programs for street youth:

1. Umthombo Halfway House, Mayville Township: Umthombo has taken some of the street youth considered to be the “hardest cases” who used to live in the notorious “Tong Lok/Rockworld building in Point, Durban and created a halfway rehabilitation house in Mayville. The young people are being mentored and reintegrated back into community life. They are assisted with life skills training, skills training and assisted job search. This program directly contributes to crime reduction in the Point area and beyond.
2. Coming in January 2009: Umthombo/YMCA Street Youth Movement’s Life Space. This centre will be a drop-in and advice centre and for street youth over the age of 18. It is in partnership with YMCA Durban and will offer mentoring, life-skills programs, a connection to various skills development programs and assisted job search as well as facilities to store ID documents and important documents, a place to wash, access to healthcare and a nutritional program. Street youth will register and join the program and subscribe to a code of conduct and goals. It will be a carefully monitored program and will have a component that focuses on key and influential members of the “26” prison gang that operates crime in the area. This program is the first in the city to take on such issues.

Umthombo’s programs are led by a senior social worker and a team of child and youth care workers. Umthombo will be employing a second social worker in January 2009. Each month Umthombo produces an Umthombo Action statistics report.

Umthombo Advocacy

Changing the Way that Society Perceives and treats Street Children

Umthombo has developed the first “think tank” around the issue consisting of former street children. Their goal is to articulate their experiences as street children in a way that will educate society as to the realities of the plight of street children and also to develop realistic and compassionate strategy suggestions around the issue. Umthombo advocacy is involved with the national Department of Social Development in the development of an inter-sectoral policy on street children.

For more information about the work of Umthombo Street Children you can visit their web site  www.umthombo.org