In the city

A perspective of the many streets in larger cities of Uganda. 

In Kampala street kids are the worst victims case of trafficing in Uganda. I did not fully understand this until sometime year 2000. I know, I see, I hear and I been through some dramatic in my own life. But shit happens anywhere but I don`t like to observe all this shabby young boys in the streets of Kampala; street children who worked for most of the day and night, only resting when there was no threat on their lives – a normal day for this boys starts around 03:00 a.m. and ends several minutes after midnight –some comes from warzone, some from prison, most of them abused or abuse. Life on the streets has always been unstable for anyone and with the little money they make, the street boys cannot afford one decent meal a day.

That is why they are very often involved in crime - and this earns them mob beatings or a jail term. To survive, each boy have to work very hard - some provided sex to adults for food or a pittance - others carried heavy loads, deal drugs, or participated in organized crime. The worst experience of a street boy is to fall sick; there is no care, yet he has to survive. Most street boys are unable to communicate properly because of drugs and all of them say they cannot do what they do without the influence of drugs. Africa4rafiki have experiences from the life of street boys in Kampala and to live with them for long time. Africa4rafiki become the “clan” for some of the street boys and with some support some help Africa4rafiki can make the acquaintance of many other boys working on the streets in Kampala. This is street boys in need and Africa4rafiki program identifies street boys actively involved in the worst forms of child traffic case – please do understand that Africa4rafiki are trying to remove some of this boys from dangerous forms of abuse and place them temporarily in Africa4rafiki “center” for rehabilitation Then some of them hopefully become involved in gainful activities before they canbe reintegrated into society – but this is like a never ending story with 1000`s of streetboys living and working on Uganda's streets, much of that story is still to be written, and they all need someone.