by Yvonne Chitiyo
This is the last in a four-part series on street children.
For 12-year old Sam Manuel, the day begins at Sam when the sun filters through his makeshift blanket of cardboard boxes. He has to get up and look for breakfast from yesterday’s left-overs in restaurant dustbins.
Sam is one of the street children who roam around the city of Mutare in the eastern part of Zimbabwe. He is of Mozambican descent and came to Zimbabwe after his parents were killed during the war in Mozambique.
“Life is difficult on the streets, sometimes I go to bed hungry. But I am, however, guaranteed of lunch everyday because people always give me their left-overs,” he said.
Sam’s wish is to go to school but the Z$10 he earns a day by guarding cars is not enough to pay for his fees. He said he has never heard of such a “thing” as the Department of Social Welfare and enquired what it was and what it meant. “If I had known about it I would have gone there a long time ago,” Sam said. He later asked to be shown the Social Welfare offices.
A major problem facing street children is that the majority of them do not attend school either because their parents have never been employed or they have been laid off through the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) introduced in 1991.
Sibongile Manguyana (13) is one such child. When approached she did not seem to mind being disturbed from eating her ration of mixed vegetables and bread delivered daily by the Presbyterian Church.
“I stopped going to school when I was in Grade Four because my father could not afford to send five children to school. Both my parents sell plastic bags at the market or at supermarket entrances,” she said.
Asked if her parents ever consulted the Department of Social Welfare for assistance to take them to school, Sibongile said they did, but all they ever got was a 10kg bag of mealie-meal — and only once.
Her brother, Prince (8), says he has never attended school and hopes that somebody will help him because he believes education is important for his future.
The problem of unemployment has led some children to do extra work after school. Some, however, work on a full-time basis on farms or as domestic workers.
Fania Mashavire (12) is a domestic worker in Sakubva who works half a day five days a week and earns $100 a month. She comes from a family of five. After work she takes to the streets to beg for money or sell vegetables.
“I have to work to support my family since my father was retrenched recently,” she said.
A section of the Zimbabwean Labour Relations Act stipulates that no contract of employment shall be enforced against any person under the age of sixteen years whether or not such person was assisted by his or her guardian. However, many children are employed in violation of the Labour Act.
According to General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ), a large number of children in Zimbabwe are employed in the large-scale farming sector for weeding, picking cotton and spraying insecticides.
Garikayi Kabaya (16) and Tichaona Mangwami (10) who live in the Old Township of Sakubva near Mutare are such children.
Garikayi helps his mother supplement the family income by working three times a week for Sister Adelaide in the garden at St Josephs Church for $30 a month. When he is not at the church he looks after people’s cars for a mere $1.50 or $2.00.
“I do not mind working at the church or looking after cars, because the money I get helps my family. What I do not like is to be screened on television, I always run away when I see those men with their van and cameras,” he said.
Tichaona, who is in Grade Two, also looks after cars. He is the eldest in a family of four. His father is unemployed and his mother sells plastic bags at the market place.
“I am very lucky to be the only one in my family who goes to school because the Department of Social Welfare pays my fees. What my mother makes from selling plastic bags is not enough to take any of us to school. The money can hardly buy all our basic needs. I just hope more jobs would be created so that my father gets employed,” he said.
However, the situation is different in Masvingo in the southern part of Zimbabwe, where most children in the streets have homes to go to at the end of the day. One example, is that of Thomas Taruvinga (13), who came to Masvingo from Bikita in 1993 after running away from his home in Chiredzi.
“I went to school up to grade seven then my parents told me they could not afford to send me to secondary school. I then decided to come to Masvingo and ended up sleeping at the Mucheke bus-terminus until the lady I work for offered me accommodation,” Taruvinga said.
He said he does not like going to the Department of Social Welfare for assistance because once his schoolmates discover that the government is paying for his fees they would tease him.
The Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare introduced a scheme in 1991 – Social Dimension Fund (SDF) — to help those who cannot afford school and health fees. The problem, however, is that most parents are not aware of such a scheme, hence the increasing number of children in the streets. (SARDC)
