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Reuniting Burundian street children and their families
Since the beginning of 2016 a lot happened in Burundi. During the past year, the main work at our Centre for Psychotraumatology, “Kira Agahinda”, concerned the implementation of a project with street children of vivo international and Burundikids e.V.in collaboration with the local NGO Foundation Stamm. The project was mainly funded by the Foundation for Collaborative Development of Baden-Württemberg (SEZ). Furthermore, the successful implementation of the project depended largely on the support through crowdfunding. The main focus of the project was the reintegration of 40 children and youths by implementing different stages as part of the reintegration process.
Starting in mid-April 2016, the team tried to find the children’s and youth’s families in order to initiate a first step contact with them. For this goal, the members of the team visited the families initially without the children and youths attending the meetings. This step also provided the family the opportunity to describe, from their point of view, why the children left for the streets. During these meetings, difficulties within the households were discussed, in order to assess which kind of intervention would be needed for the successful reintegration of the child.
While we were meeting with families, we also conducted psychological interviews with the children and youths to assess which of them could profit the most from a trauma therapy. In total, 19 therapies have been successfully completed with the most psychologically-affected children and youths.
In parallel to the single therapy sessions, all participating children were offered weekly group sessions to prepare for their return to their families. Topics of these sessions included matters such as drug use, preventative healthcare, existing conflicts in their families, plans for the future, and potential difficulties during the reintegration with their families, among other topics.
Group sessions
In addition, during this project stage 28 children received necessary medical treatment at the medical centre of our cooperation partner, Fondation Stamm.
On behalf of seven youths, we applied for a national identity card, which can be obtained in Burundi from age 16 onwards. These identity cards were also needed to procure legal assistance for the youths.
From the end of May until mid-July the children and youths were reintegrated into their families. To facilitate this, members of our team travelled together with the children back to their families. In the framework of a family gathering, past conflicts were resolved and necessary requirements for a future cohabitation were clarified.
Interventions with families
During the months of August through October, as well as in December every family received three supplementary visits from the mentoring psychologist and social worker. These visits served to see the reintegration process through and to support the families in solving upcoming difficulties and conflicts. During shared conversations, an exchange about options for enhancing the communication between children and parents took place and ideas for shared activities were developed. Some of the families received financial support to ensure their abilities to provide for the long-term needs of their children. Furthermore, all children who returned to school or started training for a job received schooling material.
Reintegration projects with street children are characterised by many challenges. In addition to the psychological burden, maltreatment in the past and present, and poverty, the severely dysfunctional family circumstances present a great challenge for successful reintegration. Therefore, we are extremely pleased to report that we were able to reintegrate 20 children back into their families in the long term during the year 2016, from which at the end of the project 13 had access to school or literacy courses. This result shows that our multidimensional approach, which addressed the psychological burden, medical treatment, legal assistance as well as economical support, access to education and especially improvement of the families’ communication is very promising and ground-breaking for future projects of this kind.
We thank you for your support and interest in our work and are happy that we can conduct such a project again in 2017!
Since the beginning of 2016 a lot happened in Burundi. During the past year, the main work at our Centre for Psychotraumatology, “Kira Agahinda”, concerned the implementation of a project with street children of vivo international and Burundikids e.V.in collaboration with the local NGO Foundation Stamm. The project was mainly funded by the Foundation for Collaborative Development of Baden-Württemberg (SEZ). Furthermore, the successful implementation of the project depended largely on the support through crowdfunding. The main focus of the project was the reintegration of 40 children and youths by implementing different stages as part of the reintegration process.
Starting in mid-April 2016, the team tried to find the children’s and youth’s families in order to initiate a first step contact with them. For this goal, the members of the team visited the families initially without the children and youths attending the meetings. This step also provided the family the opportunity to describe, from their point of view, why the children left for the streets. During these meetings, difficulties within the households were discussed, in order to assess which kind of intervention would be needed for the successful reintegration of the child.
While we were meeting with families, we also conducted psychological interviews with the children and youths to assess which of them could profit the most from a trauma therapy. In total, 19 therapies have been successfully completed with the most psychologically-affected children and youths.
In parallel to the single therapy sessions, all participating children were offered weekly group sessions to prepare for their return to their families. Topics of these sessions included matters such as drug use, preventative healthcare, existing conflicts in their families, plans for the future, and potential difficulties during the reintegration with their families, among other topics.
Group sessions
In addition, during this project stage 28 children received necessary medical treatment at the medical centre of our cooperation partner, Fondation Stamm.
On behalf of seven youths, we applied for a national identity card, which can be obtained in Burundi from age 16 onwards. These identity cards were also needed to procure legal assistance for the youths.
From the end of May until mid-July the children and youths were reintegrated into their families. To facilitate this, members of our team travelled together with the children back to their families. In the framework of a family gathering, past conflicts were resolved and necessary requirements for a future cohabitation were clarified.
Interventions with families
During the months of August through October, as well as in December every family received three supplementary visits from the mentoring psychologist and social worker. These visits served to see the reintegration process through and to support the families in solving upcoming difficulties and conflicts. During shared conversations, an exchange about options for enhancing the communication between children and parents took place and ideas for shared activities were developed. Some of the families received financial support to ensure their abilities to provide for the long-term needs of their children. Furthermore, all children who returned to school or started training for a job received schooling material.
Reintegration projects with street children are characterised by many challenges. In addition to the psychological burden, maltreatment in the past and present, and poverty, the severely dysfunctional family circumstances present a great challenge for successful reintegration. Therefore, we are extremely pleased to report that we were able to reintegrate 20 children back into their families in the long term during the year 2016, from which at the end of the project 13 had access to school or literacy courses. This result shows that our multidimensional approach, which addressed the psychological burden, medical treatment, legal assistance as well as economical support, access to education and especially improvement of the families’ communication is very promising and ground-breaking for future projects of this kind.
We thank you for your support and interest in our work and are happy that we can conduct such a project again in 2017!
