Few would suspect that the place is a rehabilitation centre for the less-privileged. The building is well designed and tastefully furnished. The comportment of the occupants of the home does not give them away as boys rescued from the streets. Their vivacious faces point to the fact that they are happy.
Yet before they were rescued from the streets, they had lived a life of frustration, having broken ties with their families. Survival was all that mattered to them and whatever they had to do to survive mattered little, no matter how injurious it could be to them or to others in their surroundings.
But now they are living as responsible members of the society, with the Fair Life Africa Foundation (FLA) at the forefront of their rehabilitation. For instance, 16-year-old Mark would always be grateful to the Fair Life Africa Foundation for changing his fortune. Unlike those who were picked from Oshodi and Kuramo Beach, Mark, having heard about the activities of the foundation decided on his own to visit the centre. Before then, he was sleeping under the bridge at Oshodi, eking out a living as a burden bearer.
As a precondition to be accepted as a “street child” into the home, he was placed on an assessment for a while and was counselled by a social worker. But he broke one of the rules of the home by engaging in a fight with one of the housemates. That should automatically qualify him for eviction, but he pleaded and made a commitment that such would not happen again and was given a second chance.
Mark had left home because he was tired of living with his uncle, a police officer and strict disciplinarian. In the process, he became more of a street urchin.
By the time he left the FLA, however, he had become a transformed fellow. He learnt how to control his anger and settle disputes amicably. And what is more, the foundation was able to reconcile him with his family.
For 15-year old John, an indigene of Oyo State and the only male child of his father, his case actually looked irredeemable. A product of a broken home, his mother had separated from his father while he was still at a tender age, and he later ran away from home.
According to the FLA, “we met John at a police shelter where he was being looked after as a lost child after he had spent some time on the street working for a woman at Oshodi in Lagos. The Fair Life Africa intervened by taking him along on a home tracing excursion.
“We located his father in Ibadan. At that time (September 2012), neither of them was ready for reconciliation. John’s father complained that it was not the first time his son would run away from home, and that he couldn’t understand his behaviour.
“John’s initial story was that he did not intentionally leave home, but did so because he lost the money he was given to go on an errand. But when someone offered him a bus fare to go home, he chose to follow another child rather than return home. He said he was afraid that he would be flogged by his father for returning so late.
“John became a housemate of the FLA home with the expectation that in time, he would be ready to return home to his father. He was enrolled in a primary school in spite of his age because he lacked any basic education. While at the home, he also attended group and one-on-one counselling sessions with our social worker, and he has shown significant progress emotionally.”
John was said to have proved himself to be hard-working and generally well behaved. “He derives joy from impressing people around him and loves to be noticed and acknowledged. He has improved considerably in hygiene, as he takes care of himself and his space well. He also does chores assigned to him happily without grumbling and often offers a helping hand.
“Academically, John was one of the top scorers in his class (third place), and showed that he had potential, but needed someone to encourage and guide him to apply himself. John was eventually reconciled with his parents.”
Mark’s and John’s experiences are just two of the many ‘street children’s that the FLA has rehabilitated. But whatever the rehabilitated children are enjoying today came at a cost. The official launch of the foundation presented the opportunity for the volunteers to tell their stories. The Chief Executive Officer of the foundation, Mrs. Ufuoma Emerhor-Asogbon, a graduate of Social Work from the Manchester Metropolitan University, had worked with several disabled adults before she volunteered as children’s advocate.
Emerhor-Asogbon disclosed that at the time the foundation was launched in October, it had gulped about N40 million since it started in January 2011, excluding the cost of the building being used as office and the transitory home for the “street children.”
She said after she realised that there was inequality in the world, she decided to contribute her quota to making the world a better place.
She said: “In Nigeria, injustice is very rife. So, it is not wise for us to continue like this. The motivation is not from an economic viewpoint, but from a spiritual position. It is from the recognition that the unbalanced way of the society is not right, where the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting more and more affluent. It doesn’t help the world to be better.”
She insists that if everybody is doing well, the world will get better. ”It is not good when some are doing badly and others are doing well. We won’t get better that way. We are better off when we empower people; when we have success right and left,” she said.
But the Fair Life Africa boss sometimes gets discouraged, “because I’m a human being and not a robot. Much as I try not to make this work an emotional one, it costs so much. When you invest so much and you get little or you beg people to help somebody else, it is not as if you are going to help yourself, I feel as if I’m begging.”
She also gets discouraged when the children she is trying to help seem not to cooperate. “I get discouraged when these children don’t understand what you are trying to do for them. And sometimes when things don’t go right with the rehabilitation, it makes you wonder, do these children really want it for themselves?”
She is looking forward to building another respite home in places like Ajegunle (Lagos), where the foundation will be able to pick children directly from the streets in those locations. “We are looking forward to having long-stay homes which is something we’re not doing at the moment. We provide short-term accommodation because we do not have the capacity to keep children at home.”
One of the field workers at the Fair Life Africa Foundation, Tope Abowaje, is a University of Lagos Human Kinetic and Health Education graduate. She is one of the people currently responsible for picking children from the streets. She says they do this not minding the dangers involved because some of the children are capable of doing anything. In a place like Oshodi where there is a kind of semi-government, it takes people with a lion’s heart to interact with the children, especially their bosses.
She said: “These children are forced to live in unhealthy environment where they hardly have their baths. They always look dirty. They have raw eczema, rotten teeth, twisted hair and eyes dulled by substance abuse. It’s astonishing to imagine the effects of such exposure on these children. They can quickly degenerate into a life of violence, sexual exploitation, trafficking and emotional instability.”
According to Abowaje, initial familiarity with these kids is met with resentment because “they are really not sure about whom they are talking to, hence they do not want to let out information. Also, they are habitually on the move and always on the look-out for opportunities and dangers.”
Would she blame the children for thinking this way? The street provides an ephemeral freedom and is like father, mother, school and home to them. To this, Abowaje says the initial familiarisation effort is always difficult.
She said: “Most people often ask how I have been able to get the boys to trust and talk to me and I generally answer that every child wants a friend who appears to understand him and doesn’t condemn his action, and that is who I show myself to be to them. With little effort, we begin to play and communicate.”
If she had succeeded in sweet-talking some of the ‘street children’ into reconciling with their parents, she still feels pained that she was unable to get Daniel from Ibadan to the home.
She said: “One of the striking situations I recall was a visit we made to the beach on a particular Easter day where my colleagues and I found this wonderful, vibrant, cheerful street child named Daniel. We soon discovered that he ran from CCC, Ibadan, Oyo State.
“After much persuasion to be part of CCC Initiative programme in our Respite Home, he said that he needed more time to make money and then he might consider the idea. About three days later, we made another trip to the same location only to find that he was involved in an accident while swimming at the beach which led to a fatal injury. And since he was all by himself on the street, rushing him to a nearby hospital was a challenge, and he died.”
Nishola Akinyera, also a field worker at the foundation, is a Mass Communication graduate from the Olabisi Onabanjo University. Akinyera, who joined the FLA two years ago, is constantly on the move, especially when it comes to meeting the material needs of the children. She also supports them through rehabilitation, reconciliation and reintegration process until they are ready to go back to their families at the end of their stay at the Fair Life Africa Foundation home.
Home tracing for these children has been challenging. According to her, the pranks the children play could be frustrating. “Some have also been quite hilarious. For instance, when children who had confidently told you that they know their way back home and are ready to go back after being on the streets for a long period, they suddenly develop ‘amnesia’ and decide not to know the way anymore when you are almost there! Often, this is because they fear you might abandon them at home without a solution to the problem they ran away from in the first place. It could be frustrating when things like that happen,” she said.
