Second Day at Chance for Children

Today I spent the morning at the Chance for Children Drop-In Center which was my second visit to the center. I wanted to see the morning activities of the children. I arrived at 8:30am and the children were already busy with bathing and washing their clothes. They are each responsible for washing their own clothes and laying them out to dry. The coordinator of the drop-in center, Seth, was telling me that when the children arrive they are literally covered in black dirt from sleeping and working in the street. They have to pull up water from a well and then use buckets in the back yard to wash and scrub the clothes before laying them out to dry in the sun. They usually only have one pair of clothes so as they wash, they wrap themselves in towels. Seth told me that they do get clothes donated from Switzerland (who mostly funds the NGO) but within a few days of wear, the clothes are already ripped and dirty. Although the washing is hard work, the kids were playful during it and they actually seemed to be having fun with each other.





They also learn to take care of their personal hygiene. This particular boy was brushing his teeth and was quite proud of the job he was doing so he was excited for me to capture him with a photo.



After the bathing and washing, the kids are allowed some play time and the foosball table is the most popular activity. The boys are quite competitive with it.





After leisure time, came Morals and Hygiene Class which one of the workers, Fred, teaches. I got to sit in on the class today and even though he taught it in the local Ashanti language of Twi, I picked up the jist of things. The reason they teach these lessons is instill Christian values into the children. Fred explained to me that their life on the street has unfortunately taught them to lie, steal, cheat, etc. and they are trying to replace these things with good morals. So they teach lessons from the Bible and Fred tries to relate the stories to their lives. Today's lesson was on why it is important not to curse people. Fred told me that often the children learn from others on the street to curse bad things on people so he was teaching them the value of blessing people instead. He was very dynamic as he taught and the children were quite attentive which was impressive considering they were probably pretty tired. He would ask them questions to make sure they were paying attention and then everyone claps for the one who answers. They sang songs and prayed as well. Then the kids broke for 30 minutes to play more games and then came the hygiene lesson which today covered proper bathing techniques, why not to pick one's nose and skin, and how to cover your mouth when coughing. Fred acted out the lesson so the kids were laughing as he showed them how it is improper to pick your nose.

I was thinking as I observed the kids today how much they seemed like normal children - play fighting, crying when made fun of, not able to sit still for long, etc. - but then when you think about what happens when they leave the center at 4pm, it's hard to comprehend how it is they survive. These children are 7, 8, 9 years old and have no family or safe place to go when they leave. They go work for a few pennies so maybe they can scrounge up enough to eat. What happens when they are sad or someone hurts them? What happens if they are sick? They are completely independent at 8 years old and raising themselves practically. And then on top of it, the estimated number of street children just in the city of Accra is 57,000! It's more than I can get my head around right now.

Next week I hope to go out with the outreach worker on the street very early in the morning to see the children sleeping and waking up and to watch how the staff engage the kids on the street. It should be quite an experience.