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KHAYELITSHA EARLY INTERVENTION PROJECT
Our statistics indicate that 40% of the children living on the street, excluding Day Strollers, originate from Khayelitsha. In addition to the work we are currently doing in the CBD, we have two Community Outreach Workers establishing what the needs of children are in that community and what programmes can be put in place to prevent these children from gravitating
to the city centre. Early intervention and family preservation may be a solution.
The decision for a child to leave his home and family and try to make a better life for himself on the streets is a slow process that begins within the community in which he lives. Khayelitsha is one of the fastest growing urban settlements in South Africa, with many informal shack dwellings housing people who have moved to Cape Town from rural communities hoping for
jobs, housing and a better life. Too often, they find none of these things and become mired in poverty and desperation. Their support systems are far away and families struggle to provide emotional and physical care for their children. Schools are unsympathetic about their inability to pay fees or buy uniforms, and children drop out as a result. They hang around the community,
and many try to survive there in a variety of ways.
Our prevention work began in 2005. The Outreach Worker soon found a large number of out-of-school children making a living by helping to clean cars at the taxi rank. Whilst doing home visits to assess each child's situation, he discovered many caring people in the community who referred other children living in very difficult circumstances. Working with vulnerable children
and families in severely impoverished communities is hard, but it has been wonderful to find that there are community members who care enough to try and help.
We had a fantastic response to an appeal for volunteers. Community-based volunteers are a crucial component of our strategy. They live within the neighbourhood and know the families and children. We provide training, with the help of Volunteer Centre, and regular weekly support and supervision meetings are held. The volunteers assist with home visits, feed back to us
on the family's needs, and offer emotional support to the family.
Our interventions with the children and families have been varied, according to their needs. We try as far as possible to network with existing resources in the community and to refer families to the appropriate services.
This relatively inexpensive project has proved a great success and our dream is to duplicate it in other at-risk communities.
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