Voices of former Street Children

Kwame

My name is Kwame. My life was on the street. When I was on the street I used to do gambling and many other things. I have stayed on the street for about 8 years. To stay on the street is not easy because sometimes you will not get money to buy food or even to buy water. I didn’t have a place to sleep so sometimes I slept at the roadside. When it was raining I felt very sad. Sometimes I had to beg for money before I could eat. Sometimes I had to go to the marketplace to sell something before I could buy food. So life on the street isn’t easy. These are my experiences from the street.

(Kwame, 15 years, former street child, is now living at the CFC-Boys Home)

Emmanuel

My name is Emmanuel. I want to express the difficult time I had on the street. I was on the street with other children (boys and girls). On the street I had to work before I could even buy my breakfast and water to bath. I couldn’t always get enough money to buy food or water to bath. So sometimes I could bath only twice a week! Sometimes I had to steal which was very dangerous. One thing which was very sorrowful was that some of the boys were sleeping with the girls and some of them got pregnant at the age of 13 or 14 years.

Especially during the rainy season it was very difficult for us. We couldn’t get a place to sleep. So when it was raining at night some of us were just standing till the rain stopped. We also felt very cold during this season.

(Emmanuel, 22 years, former street child, is now living at the CFC-Boys Home)

Joseph

I stayed on the street for about 11 years. It was not easy to get money to buy food to eat. Even to get a place for me to sleep was difficult. Sometimes I had to sleep by a gutter and mosquitoes bit me. So I became ill quite often. And when I was sick I couldn’t work to get money to buy medicine. Sometimes my friends went to work to buy medicine for me. There on the street we didn’t go to school. We had to work everyday. When we got some money we used it to play games. And when we spent all our money we went to work again. If we couldn’t get enough money to buy food we went to steal money from other people but when we got caught we received severe beatings and a few times we were sent to the police station. These were my experiences on the street.

(Joseph, 16 years, former street child, is now living at the CFC-Boys Home)