Projects Overview

Streets Ahead Projects and Activities

Streets Ahead runs six distinct projects and a number of related activities:

Outreach and Reunification

This project constitutes the core of the organisation’s work. A team of qualified and experienced staff conduct daily outreach work on the streets of Harare and nearby high-density residential suburbs and at night twice every week. The purpose of street outreach is to identify new arrivals on the streets, initiate contact, form relationships and maintain records on each child getting assistance from the organisation; to proactively reach out to families and communities and offer guidance and support to parents and guardians who believe there are no alternatives to abandoning their children to the streets; to give parents information on the high risk of HIV/AIDS to children living on the streets.

Outreach workers also assist children who want to be reunited with their families with family tracing and investigation and taking the children to their families. They also conduct follow up visits to ensure proper integration of the child in the family and community. This exercise is nationwide as children come from different places in the country. This is a capital intensive programme, however if done well it is sustainable. There are two trips carried out to reunite one child; firstly family tracing is done to talk to the family and see if they will accept the child and then after taking the child along

The organisation has a transit centre in Waterfall housing up to 12 children pending reunification. We also support a foster home in Tafara where we place children with no relative willing to take them in. Most of these children have been sexually abused. The home currently has 14 children.

Drop-in Centre (House of Smiles)

Streets Ahead is committed to providing a clean and safe environment to meet the basic needs of children living and working on the streets. The organisation strives to provide a safe place where children can access basic needs such as food, bathing and laundry facilities; counseling, education and life skills/empowerment training. A place where a child’s talents and capabilities can be identified and developed through projects involving music, drama and art as well as sports and recreation. The children are resocialised through programmes offered at the Drop-in Centre so that they become self-sufficient and ultimately can be assimilated as useful and sound members of the community. The drop-in centre is open Monday to Friday during working hours.

Education

Streets Ahead runs informal literacy and numeric classes at the Drop-in Centre for those children who did not have an opportunity to go to school. The organisation is currently supporting 90 children in formal schools around the country. The educational costs include school fees, purchase of school uniforms, school levies, practical subjects, exam fees and other related costs that might be required by children in school.

Peer Project

The project aims at providing information on Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), safe sex, and to reduce the incidents of HIV and AIDS among children and youths living and working on the streets of Harare. The project is HIV and AIDS intervention specifically designed for street children and youths. The project has peer educators composed of children still living on the streets and those who have left the streets. It operates an outreach clinic, which provides medical cover for street children and youths.

Advocacy

The organisation is also involved in advocacy and lobbying to influence leaders and policy makers by promoting child rights and conducting campaigns to educate the public and help change negative perceptions of children on the streets. Streets Ahead is also working towards developing material on street life, and to educate the public on the plight of street children and to promote positive change in public attitudes towards street children.

The organisation would also like to expand its services to include prevention of children coming into the district. The project will target the Jacha area in Epworth, and work with non-formal school that are mushrooming in the area. If these schools are equipped they would attract and retain more children thereby reducing the number of children coming into the streets. Epworth has been identified as one of the areas with a high number of children on the streets.

Young Mothers Club

The project assists young and girls who fall pregnant and give birth on to run small income generating activities. The girls run such projects like, vending, candle making and cooking food for sale. The income earned enables the teenage mother to look after her child without having to engage in transactional sex to earn money.