The ‘Association’ Model, Undugu Society, Nairobi

The Undugu Society was founded in 1973 and Railway Children has been a partner in its street work since 2006. It had three residential homes catering for around 200 children from the streets, but reviewed its strategy as the numbers of children on the streets in Nairobi ran into many thousands and efforts of NGOs were making little impact on the issue. In conjunction with Railway Children, The Undugu Society decided to form and support 30 ‘Associations’ of children on the street. The associations would be formed of around 25 children, would select their leaders who would be trained and mentored by the Undugu Society; the association members would meet regularly; would be helped to find legitimate work or sources of income; would in time have a group bank account; and would be protected to some extent from police harassment as they are perceived as a legitimate group. Critically, the association members would look out for newly arrived children on the street and bring them to the Undugu Society for rehabilitation and possible reintegration with their family and community. The Undugu Society retained one residential centre for rehabilitation of the younger children of those that were new to the street, converted one home into the training centre and sold the other for funding the project and other activities of the organisation. The ‘movement’ grew rapidly until there are now over 250 associations in Kenya (mainly in Nairobi and Kisumu) and in partnership with The Undugu Society, Railway Children is now training its other NGO partners in Kitale and Tanzania in the programme methodology.

Good Practice

The Undugu Society has found a way of turning potentially hostile and anti-social gangs into positive groups and has obtained some community and police support for the development. The aim is to empower the children and reach a much larger number than could be impacted by the residential home model. It is also a means of using the eyes and ears of existing children and youth on the streets to identify new children and enable the UnduguSociety to make early interventions before the new children become exploited and abused. It is a programme that can be transferred through training to many other programmes, as is already occurring in East Africa.

Key Challenges

A lot of trust is put in the leadership of the associations after their training and not all groups have been successful. The associations select their own Chair, Secretary and Treasurer and if they make poor selections (such as their drug supplier!) it clearly will not work well and the Undugu mentoring needs to be stronger. The movement has grown so fast (pushed by the children) that Undugu has found it difficult to support all the groups effectively, which is one reason why the system is being taught to other NGOs. There has been some resistance by the police in accepting that street children meetings are not a danger and need breaking up and finding legitimate work for all the association members is a challenge. The aim is to empower the associations to operate and be sustained free of Undugu help and supervision, but so far nearly all the associations have required some continued support.

Key Successes

An estimated 50% of the associations have reached a degree of maturity although as said above only a handful have reached the stage where they are self-sustaining. They have brought many younger children for rehabilitation, although this in itself is a challenge to Undugu as the villages where the children arrive from are often remote and it is difficult to undertake the family/community support and follow-up necessary to effect a successful reintegration of the runaway child. The successful associations have restored pride and self-respect in children and youths who had little hope and have cut crime and drug-taking in some of theareas where the associations operate.

Lessons Learned

The model is a way of reaching out to children on the street when the numbers would swamp any attempt to offer them a more intensive centre-based programme. Many of these children have skills and potential if properly trained and supported and are ready to turn away from crime and drugs if offered real alternatives. Allowing the model to grow too rapidly was a lesson, although it was difficult to stop the enthusiasm of many new groups who saw the impact of the early associations and just started initiating their own groups, then asking Undugu for help – requests they found difficult to turn down.