"ALMUDOS" -- THE STREET CHILDREN OF SENEGAL
This story is about street children, particularly those called almudos. In their circumstances and behavior though, the almudos share many characteristics with street children in other parts of the world, so the website linked to this story has grown to be a window into the lives of street children in many different countries.
You will find many sources of information -- over four hundred links to websites on every continent and many links to documentary information as well. Photo galleries, videos and music are freely available on the site and books and films may also be purchased.
The links on the left of the website will introduce you to a world where 150,000,000 children live - our city streets. You are welcome!
WHAT IS AN ALMUDO?
He is a small boy of about eleven. He lives in a large city in a poor West African country. He is dressed in ragged shorts and a T-shirt, most likely many sizes too large. He is barefoot with one infected toe. The city streets are hard on toes. At night he sleeps on the street and wakes at dawn to begin the day begging for his breakfast.
Generally he is kindly treated in the streets and is given food enough to survive, but his health suffers. He is underweight and undersize for his age and has intestinal parasites and skin problems such as scabies and ringworm. When he has more serious diseases such as malaria and schistosomiasis, they remain untreated.
He has not seen his family for a year or two, since he left his distant rural village, but he keeps in touch through a network of friends and relatives he sees from time to time. At home the family is large -- five or six brothers and sisters -- too large for all to be taken care of in these difficult times. He misses his family and longs for the day when he will have saved enough from his begging to go home with gifts for them. He wants to buy cloth for his mother and a radio for his father. For himself he will buy clothes and a portable tape player, but not until just before he leaves the city since they will only attract thieves.
Some of his friends sniff solvents and he is tempted. When you're a hungry eleven-year-old boy in the night street, morning seems very far away and a little oblivion is hard to resist.
He would like to wear clean clothes, go to school every day and not have to worry about the next meal. And although a realistic adult would dismiss this as an impossible dream, children surely have the right to such dreams.
He is a good boy, willing and eager to find ways to be of use. He unselfconsciously rewards a small gift with a big smile and the blessing of Allah. There is something of heaven in the smile as well as in the blessing.
ALMUDO HOME PAGE
STREET CHILDREN WORLDWIDE DIRECTORY
* To see more background information on the almudos, click HERE
* NEW! (November 2002) Report on the Almudos of Senegal, by Nina Coon.
* To read about what inspired this project, click HERE
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KIDS ALIVE -- KENYA
Kenya has been described as a land of striking landscapes, ranging from snowcapped Mount Kenya to rich farmlands, barren deserts and tropical beaches. She lies on the eastern coast of Africa, right on the equator.
Kenya borders Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan to the north, Uganda to the west, Tanzania to the south, and the Indian Ocean to the East, and covers an area of 583,000 sq, km (225,000 sq. miles).
Nairobi is the capital city of Kenya. The other major towns are Mombasa, the main port on the Indian Ocean and Kisumu, on Lake Victoria. Kenyans, known for their great ability in long-distance running are also hospitable people who love to welcome visitors. Karibu Kenya!! (Welcome to Kenya)
English is the official language in Kenya and Swahili the national language. Kenya is grouped into more than 70 ethnic groups, which are divided into 3 main linguistic groups namely: Bantu (e.g. Embu, Kamba, Kikuyu, Kisii, Luhya, Meru, Kuria, Bukusu), Nilotes (e.g. Luo, Teso, Nandi, Kipsigis, Marakwet, Maasai) and Cushites (e.g. Boran, Rendille, Somali). Kenya has a population of close to 30 million.
Kenya joined our Kids Alive International family in 2000. At that time, the Mt Kenya Children’s Home was the primary work in this site. Since then, the Karundas Center has been added which houses the House of Joy for abandoned babies home, the Rebecca Home for HIV/AIDS infected and affected children, and the Karundas Girls’ Home for vulnerable girls. Kids Alive has since expanded into remote areas, working in partnership with several church-based residential and community care programs for orphans and vulnerable children.
Kenya is supervised by the Kenya Leadership Team, led by Field Coordinator, Linda Ndethiu. Missionaries, Rob and Colleen Davis of Canada are also helping to care for the Kenya children we rescue.
Kids Alive sites in Kenya:
HOUSE OF JOY
KURUNDA'S GIRLS HOME
MOUNT KENYA BOYS' HOME
REBECCA HOME
KOROGOCHO CHILDREN'S HOME
MITABONI CHILDREN'S HOME
NARO MORU CHILDREN'S HOMES
NYAMARAMBE CHILDRENS' HOME
TIMAU (STEVEN'S HOME) CHILDREN'S HOME
NYANDO CHILDREN'S HOME
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WHITE AMERICANS SHOULD ADOPT MORE ORPHANS FROM AFRICA -- PROFESSOR SAYS
The rising number of African orphans is creating a crisis that makes international adoptions imperative despite concerns about transracial adoptions, says a Brigham Young University professor who herself was adopted from Korea by white parents.
Jini Roby's argument that African nations and American parents should consider a radical increase in adoptions of black African orphans was published in a recent issue of the journal Social Work. Roby said 12.3 million children in sub-Saharan Africa have lost one or both parents, overwhelming the ability of extended families to care for them. That number is projected to balloon to 18.4 million by 2010.
"That's just in sub-Saharan Africa," she said. "There's a huge crisis out there, bigger than we've ever known, and we're not talking about it very much."
Transracial adoption is a controversial subject in the United States. In 1972, the National Association of Black Social Workers compared the adoption of African-American children by white families to genocide.
Today, the NABSW and other adoption groups emphasize kinship care — recruiting relatives to adopt African-American orphans. The same philosophy is the cultural norm in Africa, but Roby said the same factors creating so many orphans are also devastating kinship networks — the AIDS epidemic, famines and civil wars.
"The kin system is becoming overwhelmed," Roby said. "There's all kinds of evidence that the extended family has evaporated in many cases, especially at the bottom rung of the economic ladder." The NABSW recently accepted transracial adoption as an alternative for American children of African descent, though it maintains the stance that same-race adoptions are preferable.
Roby said the priority for African-American adoptees should be placement with African-American families but found on her first visit to Africa in 2003 that in many cases, African children no longer can be raised by African families. "I'm not proposing adoption as the first and best solution," she said. "First of all, we need to keep the families intact. In Uganda this summer, I saw mothers infected with HIV who were staying healthy and alive for 15 years or more. First, we need to keep parents alive. Then we need to support the extended families willing to care for these children. A lot of my work is focused on those two areas. This paper is about the small role adoption can play to make a huge difference in the lives of individual children."
Roby worked with the government in Mozambique to create laws for international adoption. In Uganda, she studied the availability of extended-family placement and how mothers with AIDS plan for their children.
American parents have adopted a growing number of international children over the past decade. The United States issued 7,093 immigrant visas to orphans in 1990. The number rose to 22,728 last year. Few come from African nations, which are reluctant to allow more. "They're nervous because of the history of out-migration of their people into Europe and America, because of the former slave trade," Roby said. "They're nervous their children are being sold into domestic servitude or sex trafficking. I understand that. We all need to have empathy for that. But when they learn about the legal safeguards in place for international adoption, they want to consider it."
Roby was in an orphanage for three years before she was adopted at 14 and raised in southeastern Utah. Her husband is adopted, too, and the couple has adopted two children, one from Roby's native Korea. "My husband says adoption runs in our family," she said.
The North American Council on Adoptable Children believes each child should be placed with a family that recognizes preservation of the child's ethnic and cultural heritage as an inherent right, executive director Joe Kroll said. International adoptions can build on that, Roby said.
"I sort of adopted a global identity for myself. I think my children are going that way, too. It's not so important that we be able to identify ourselves purely as this culture or that, because we really live in a global society. I can go anywhere and feel at home. I don't know if that has to do with my trans-cultural adoption or if it's my personality."
Roby expects some people to be uncomfortable with her paper but said the African orphan crisis will only worsen. It isn't expected to peak until 2020. "Children need loving, stable families," she said. "The color match is important but secondary in a crisis like this."
Kroll hasn't seen Roby's paper and expressed some discomfort because of his own experience raising a Korean adoptee. "The federal government has gone overboard to try and make adoptions appear color blind," he said. "Color blind doesn't work when you're a person of color."
Kroll also worries that international adoptions have become trendy at the expense of older American foster children because of celebrities like Angelina Jolie, who has adopted two children, the most recent from the African nation of Ethiopia — a girl whose mother died of AIDS. "My concern," Kroll said, "is that the publicity surrounding celebrities like Angelina Jolie is making people move away from the very real needs of the children in the American foster system. There are so many kids who need help."
For Roby, there are too many now in Africa to ignore. "I feel I have to do this work for the rest of my life," she said.
Read full article HERE
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Orphans And Staff Enjoy The Outdoors In Uganda
"AFRICAN ORPHANS" IN CONGO REPUBLIC AND UGANDA
African Orphans, a ministry of Warm Blankets Orphan Care International, is a nonprofit Christian mission intent on fulfilling the Great Commission by rescuing and caring for increasing numbers of orphan kids in conjunction with church-planting efforts.
AFRICAN ORPHAN CRISIS
AIDS, war, disease, poverty, and famine have created a worldwide tragedy. In Africa, current figures show there are over 34 million orphans, of which 12 million have been orphaned by AIDS.
"The worst is yet to come," warns a report issued by the UN Children's Fund. “By 2010, there will be 41,994,000 orphans in Africa, of which half will be due to AIDS.” These children --a majority between the ages of 10 and 16 -- are left without critical guidance, protection and support. The problem is overwhelming, the need is immense, but there is a solution.
OUR SOLUTION TO THE CRISIS
Someone once said of Africa, "If there is any place where love is dead, it is here." African Orphans does not believe that to be true. We believe that the love of God is making a difference in a continent torn by war, disease and poverty. African Orphans believes God is the "father of the fatherless" (Ps 98:5).
We believe God is calling His Church throughout the world to show His love by taking action and caring for the orphan and the widow, for this is religion that is pure and faultless. (James 1:27) Based on this faith, African Orphans is dedicated to taking in the orphaned children of Africa and bringing them into our hearts and into our Church Orphan Homes.
Join the efforts of African Orphans now...help us take what the Lord has provided, using our Church Home orphan care model to restore the lives of these orphans!
Click here to see how we are being part of the solution through our effective church orphan home models.
Visit the website: AFRICAN ORPHANS
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CHARITIES WHICH SUPPORT CHILDREN IN AFRICA
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