STREET LIVES

From July through to December 1999 ICT's social worker assisted by other staff visited the homes of every single child at the Liyavo Village Community Project (LVCP) and with a few exceptions relations or guardians were found. Of the over 200 homes visited some of the families had managed to uplift themselves and were now in a position to look after their children, many were delighted with the prospect. Some needing only minimal support from ICT, like initial school transfer fees, 38 children have now returned home. Regular monitoring by our social worker ensures that neither child nor family suffer as a result of the re-integration. The series of home visits also enabled staff and guardians/parents to build up a repertoire that has resulted in many more children being taken for home visits during holidays and more visits to the project by the parents or guardians.
ICT's ideal would be if all the children in our care could return to their families on a permanent basis and that our Children's Centres could become truly transitional homes. Unfortunately poverty, disease and ethnic violence have left some of the children with absolutely no where to go.

The long awaited, and now renamed, 'Malaria Eradication Programme' is now being implemented in 12 villages neighbouring Liyavo where ICT-K's main project is located. Initially a community partnership was established between the 2 locations of Liyavo and Kapsitwet (KAPLIVO) and this partnership has registered with the Kenyan government as a Self Help Group. Each of the 12 villages represented have their own Village Health Committee (VHC) and Community Health Workers (CHWs) all of whom have been selected by their respective villages and trained by ICT in conjunction with the Ministry of Health (MoH). These bodies are now in place and sufficiently strong to implement the Malaria Reduction Programme. The programme has 5 stages aimed at sensitising and equipping communities to effectively reduce mortality and morbidity while displaying the cost effectiveness of prevention as oppose to cure. ICT, MoH and KAPLIVO have worked together on this programme and are now completing stage 4 in 10 of the 12 villages. The stages are as follows:

1. Awareness (sensitising communities on the life cycle and preferred habitats of the mosquito and how malaria is transmitted)
2. Physical Reduction (planned and monitored clearing of mosquito habitats and breeding grounds)
3. Physical Protection (mosquito nets, screens, whitewashing dwellings, etc.)
4. Chemical Protection (dipping bed nets, spraying dwelling with residual repellents, etc.)
5. Reviewing (after six months the whole project will be reviewed and the chemical protection aspect repeated.

Cost sharing between the communities and the MoH has enabled direct programme beneficiaries to be over 10,000 people

Arrested for being 'a child in need of protection and care', Alice was led away to the Kitale Police holding cells in mid March, 2000. Unfortunately for her Kitale has no remand home or juvenile centre and so it was to the adult cells that 10 year old Alice was led.
Alice had travelled from Limuru, near Nairobi, to stay with her aunt who lived in Kitale. Ill prepared on arrival she could not find her aunt, she had no address and no other form of directions nor means to return home.
Two weeks later ICT was informed by the District Children's Officer of her plight. By then her case was firmly in the hands of the judiciary and so it was through the courts that we managed to get Alice placed temporarily in the care of ICT while her family was located. With the little she was able to tell us we finally advertised in the national press and passed the word around Kitale in the hope of finding her aunt, but to no avail. A month later she appeared in court again and we were able to persuade the magistrate to give ICT permission to travel with Alice to Limuru in search of her family. On 11th May, 2000 Alice was reunited with her mother TWO months after she was first arrested.

ICT has since brought this and similar cases to the attention of the District Children's Advisory Committee and we have held talks with the Officer in Charge of Station, Kitale, to try and ensure that future cases of children in police custody are reported to the Children's Officer without delay. A children's desk is also to be introduced at the police station with specially trained officers to man it.

If you would like to help or require more information, contact us:
ICT-K, PO Box 1745, Kitale Kenya.
Tel: +254 54 31323
Fax: +254 325 30246
e-mail: ictk@africaonline.co.ke

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