Refugee children find a home in Kenya emergency
25/01/2008
Fifty four children, displaced by the recent post-election violence in Kenya have found a temporary home at the SOS Children's Village Nairobi. Each one has a story to tell.
Displaced children find temporary home at the SOS Children's Village Nairobi
In the second week of 2008,14 year old John left his home in Eldoret, as he did every weekday, to go to school. It was after the post-election violence that rocked Kenya in early January, particularly Eldoret, where ethnic violence has left hundreds dead, thousand injured and many more displaced. Schools had restarted and there was an uneasy truce, broken by sporadic ethnic-based attacks.
When John got home, at about five o'clock, he found that the door to his house had been knocked down, and many items were missing. Worst of all, his mother, John's only known relative, was not there. John ran to his neighbour's home to find out what had happened and discovered that the man had been attacked by people with machetes and that his leg was badly injured. On enquiring about his mother he was simply told, "She ran for her life".
John left the neighbour and began to walk in the direction of the Eldoret Showground which was being used as a displacement camp - a place of relative safety where he might find his mother. But when he saw a gang of young men ahead, armed with machetes and bows and arrows, he became scared. He knew he was in danger and he flagged down a passing truck full of people asking if it would take him too. He didn't know where they were going and asked to be taken to Nakuru, the nearest large town in the Rift Valley. But the truck never went there. Instead, it sped on to the comparative safety of Nairobi, 300 km away, where John was left to fend for himself.
John hears about a displacement camp
For four days and nights John wandered the streets getting food from concerned groups and NGOs who were helping displaced people. Then he heard about the Jamhuri Showground, also being used as a displacement camp, and made his way there. It was at the showground that he came across the Red Cross officials who took him and 29 other children to the SOS Children's Village Nairobi, where he will stay while the Red Cross tries to trace his mother.
The children came to the village on 22 January and since then 25 more have arrived. They are living in family houses that have spare capacity at the moment (some SOS children are at boarding school) and are being fed, clothed and cared for by the SOS mothers. They range in age from three year old Tony, who can only say his name, to 17 year old Alex from the Kibera slum, who left as the violence started and, like John, has also lost his single mother. Fifteen year old David also lived in Kibera, though his family home is in the west of the country. His house was flattened, the furniture stolen and he was told to leave if he wanted to save his life.
Children come from different backgrounds
The story is the same with all the children - when the fighting started they had to leave, losing mothers, aunts, cousins and guardians as they fled. Some, like John and Alex, had relatively stable home lives (even though they had single parents), attended school and had ambitions to get good jobs. Others have more tangled backgrounds - possibly orphans from west Kenya sent to live with extended family in Kibera, attending informal schools and assisting in the house. What they all have in common is that they are innocent victims of an ethnic based violence that has shocked Kenya. And they all, without fail, want it to end. "I don't want to know what they are doing", says David, referring to the politicians, "I just want to get back to school."
The SOS Children's Village Nairobi is preparing to look after these displaced children for up to three months while the Red Cross tries to trace parents and guardians. If they are not found other arrangements will have to be made for the children, including admitting them into the village (if they are young) or assisting them through family strengthening programmes which could help them find shelter and keep them at school. When asked how they like the village, despite their sadness every child smiles. There is no doubt that the children's village offers them far more comfort than they are used to. One 8 year old girl sitting in a family house expressed her surprise and joy when she said with wide eyes and a big grin: . "Hapa kuna vitabu. Nyingi tena. Hiziz zote ni za hawa watoto, si wengine. Mimi pia, sijui kama nitaweza kuwa nazangu nyingi hivi." (There are books here. Soooo many. All these books belong to these children, not anyone else. I wonder if I will be so lucky as to own as many books.) It is enough to touch anyone's heart.
Learning to regain their trust in adults
Despite their temporary secure surroundings, these young children cannot escape from the violence they have seen and suffered. Born into poverty, life has always been an uphill struggle, now made a hundred per cent worse because they have lost one of the few things they ever had - a home and the love of a family. The task facing SOS Children is to give them support, care, love and security so that they can restart their lives with hope and renew their confidence in a grown-up world which has hugely let them down.
Relevant Countries: Kenya.