For those who are called FOR the mission of Social Evangelisation
(Work with street children, unemployed youth, victims of human trafficking and sexually exploited children – underprivileged people generally.)
LET US START TOGETHER
“The Church, sharing in mankind’s joy and hopes, in its anxieties and sadness, stands with every man and woman of every place and time, to bring them the good news of the Kingdom of God.” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 60)
“Evangelising the social sector means infusing into the human heart the power of meaning and freedom found in the Gospel, in order to promote society befitting mankind because it befits Christ: it means building a city of man that is more human because it is in greater conformity with the Kingdom of God.” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 63)
Street children are all the children and youth who use the street as a primary source of their survive.
WHO ARE THEY? In India they are called “Rag Pickers”, in Kenya they are the “Parking Boys”, in the Philippines people call them “Peggy Boys”, in Brazil they got the name “Pivetes”, in Peru “Pajaro Frutero” and in developed countries they are called “Homeless Youth” or “Runaways”.
“Street children” is a phrase that evokes different meanings for various people. Most city dwellers pity them and consider them a nuisance that has to be gotten rid off. Social workers see them as the victims of an oppressive insensitive system. Cops see them as juvenile delinquents and future criminals. Motorists see them as traffic hazards.
AS CHRISTIANS AND PEOPLE CALLED TO BE STREET MISSIONARIES WE SEE THEM as human beings, we consider them as our little brothers and sisters who need succour and the roadmap to a path that leads away from this ignominious label to be a “street child”.
According to the United Kingdom Committee for UNICEF and WHO they belong to three categories: Children ON the street, Children OF the street and ABANDONED children.
Children ON the street: They are in touch with their families and communities and they only go back to them at the end of the day. Children OF the street: They have feeble relations with their families, visiting them occasionally. The street is basically is their home where they seek shelter, food and companionship. Abandoned children: They have no choice but to belong to the street. They have no ties with their families at all and are completely on their own.
When God calls you for the mission of Social Evangelisation (to work with underprivileged people) He puts in your heart a fire (light, passion) so strong that empowers you to be able to overcome your instinctive fear, difficulties or rejection. This calling and the mission are considered as an authentic gift of the Holy Spirit. His grace throws down all barriers either in you or in those you minister so that you would be able to reach the hurt and smashed heart of your brothers and sisters and also to see, judged and solved their root-problems. At the first moment the passion of merciful love would launch you with all your heart towards your suffering brothers and sisters. Only that meeting you would recognize the consistence, firmness and strength of your love. “Love as powerful as death; passion is as strong as death itself. It bursts into flame and burns like a raging fire.” (Song of Songs 8, 6)
BLACK HOLES – HUNGRY FOR LOVE
It is very important to understand why these people, our brothers and sisters, are on the streets? We may repeatedly hear from their stories:
“My mother welcomed one of her friends that turned to be my stepfather … he beats me … he abused me … my life was a hell … my mother preferred her friend to me and I left home … have seen my father beating my mother and could not do anything … my father drinks and when he is drunk he beats all of us … so I run away … there is no money home and sometimes we do not have food … my family cannot afford my school fee and uniform … first I came to the town to sell things and after a while I just did not go back home and started to sleep on the street … my parents died of HIV/AIDS and my grandmother who looks after me is very old and ill … I was influenced by friends and came with them”.
Sometimes as young as 10 years old, children hug the street life, as it was a joke, game or entertainment. Yes the street is attractive and it captivates: it is busy, there is a group of friends, offers more room and freedom, and there is easy access to money and food. But on the street these children and adolescences become sons and daughters of nobody, they find no one to love them and to care of them. We can observe that they chronically suffer from physical (school, food, and regular life, etc.) and affection (love, care, attention, respect and motivation, etc.) shortage. They become “black holes”, hungry for love.
Who would be able to heal them from the harms that have been caused by the explosions of silent grenades that the society (government, family, local community, etc.) throws at them every day?
They are the unwanted children, those who were born and growing in rejection, in many cases in violence. Growing up they get revolted and rapidly learn how to react to the violence to which they receive even greater violence. They go and seek to satisfy the black hole of their hearts that ask for love and care. With drugs, the well-known glue and/or dagga, they want to feel dopey in order to forget, to be always happy, to be with their group and to have the courage to face the challenges of their lives. These children and adolescents are a living cry for seeking for affection and dignity that they have never received.
Why are they on the street? There are many causes.
SOCIO CULTURAL: Rapid industrialization, migration in search of better economic and lifestyle opportunities.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS: Poverty and child labour being the outcome of supplementing family income.
EDUCATION: Deprived of a corrective education system, fear from school, lack of many to pay school fee and school uniform.
CRUELTY AND ABUSE: Physical escape from torture inflicted on young bodies and tender minds.
NEGLECT: Deprived of love and affection at home as adults cannot cope with their own problems and struggles.
BROKEN HOMES: One-parent families, separation of parents and new person in the family, lack of male/father image. Deprived of acceptance at home.
PEER INFLUENCES: Some of them want adventure, freedom and independence.
INFLUENCE OF MEDIA: Portrayal of city life, glamour, adventure, money and easy life attraction misguides them.
WHAT DO THEY FACE WHILE ON THE STREET?
PHYSICAL: They are deprived of adequate nutrition, have no home and face various health problems due to unhygienic environments, sexual promiscuity and drug abuse.
PSYCHOLOGICAL: They have experienced a stressful past, live a transitory life, fall victim to substance abuse and unlearn all learnt behaviour like socializing into antisocial activities and petty crime.
SOCIAL: They are deprived of basic needs and resources, lack opportunities, face exploitation and stigmatisation like physical and sexual abuse.
They accept the life on the street and adjust to the circumstances. They enjoy what ever they have, make friends and try to forget their woes. They learn to fight their battles independently.
They want to meet somebody who wishes to give them back their “lost childhood”. You, who called to be a street missionary, you can make a difference in their lives!
As soon as a profound and involved relationship starts, as soon as they recognise you as a friend or even a “father” or a “mother” they want to receive from you the love that they have never had. Do not forget: they are hurt children and in many cases can be seen that an immature adult lives in a child body due to the abandonment, suffering and street life. To get back their childhood in order to rescue them, they need from you to establish and maintain a healthy, lovely and also firm adult-child relationship. Because we want their transformation, you must stand steadily in a position of a friend or parent with demanding love that either can say “yes” or “no” when it is necessary. Be aware the fact that not at all times a “yes” that loves but sometimes to love correctly you must say “no” too.
This position might call strange reactions and behaviour out of the children. You must remember that they would try to suck your love in a range of forms and also that they may react in a variety of forms. While you say “yes” and try to satisfy whatever desire they have, you are the best friend, you are the person who really helps, you are the “father”/”mother” they never had. But in the moment when in certain situations you must say “no” and seemingly you are not satisfying what they want, they hurt, disturbed and perturbed love might discharge against you. They might say to you that you never wanted to listen, they might even threat you. These could be painful, fearful and discouraging. But please do not forget these are not the demonstration of hate but of the wounded love they have.
The phenomenon that works in these situations is the PROJECTION. Let us understand it: You work with underprivileged, under cared and under loved children and adolescents. They do not have healthy relationship with their parents. You approach them and somehow enter in your lives. They accept you as a friend or even as you were their “mother” or “father”. So by the time passing, after the moments of honeymoon, happiness and joy, because “your are” their father and mother, they would start projecting in you all their feelings, hurt and suffering they feel against their own parents. In you they hate them, in you they do not accept them and in you they reject them.
This projecting process could be dangerous. For this reason your never would work alone with them, you never give them your phone number or your address. But also for this reason you never give up loving, accepting and respecting them: only love can heal and integrate them. So you might say to them: “I love you whatever you say and do”. “I love you whatever you say and do, but not all your actions and behaviours I like”. “You can do anything I continue loving you and God loves you even more than me.” And when you feel offended or hurt you might pray: “Forgive them Father! They don’t know what they are doing”. (Lk 23, 34)
Now you are getting used to the street mission. Now you may ask: “Why I am on the street?” “What can I do with/for these children?” The answer is incredible simple: BE with them. What we do on the street is the PEDAGOGY OF PRESENCE. We approach them, we talk to them and most importantly we listen to them. Because we do not distribute anything on the street (there is no money, food or clothes given out on the street) you might feel useless and your ministry unimportant. You might say, but we do not do anything for them. Do not forget, that we do! We are with them, we relate with them, we make them feel important. Not your actions are important, but your persistence presence and principally your love. Love is sometimes silent. We are with them as God-Emanuel is with us. We are with them as Mary accompanied Jesus until his earthly end on the Golgotha. There she could not do anything. She was silenced and watched his agonising son. But she was there! Children should know which days and what time you visit them, so they could count on you. Our presence is the source of our motivation by which we strengthen the children to seek for ways out of the street.