STREET CHILDREN IN ACCRA

The first story that I was going to work on at Radio Univers was not certain, nor was who I would be working with. After a few meetings with the station management, I was told that I would be working with Franklyn. He is in his second year at the University of Ghana and in his second year with Radio Univers.

As is the case with most of the people involved with the station, he does not have training in journalism or broadcasting. As is also the case with most of the people at the station, he is also involved with most of the areas in the stations operations.

When we sat down together, we went over a list of possible subjects that we could investigate. The first subject that he was drawn to was that of street children. While I have heard of areas where street children are a major issue in Accra, I really didn’t know a great deal about the problem, what areas where street children are prevalent, or who we should contact.

That was a good chance to conduct an informal workshop on research, as we were really starting with nothing but a topic.

Our first step was to go online to find articles and contacts. We came across various government agencies and NGO’s. We also found a cross-section of formal and informal documents covering the subject. After reviewing what we had found and pursuing our leads, we were on our way to Catholic Action for Street Children’s main office, which is a multi-purpose community centre and training facility for street children, assisting them in a transition from life on the street to a life of empowerment.

Our interviews were with the director, staff and volunteers, and with some of the children.

One young boy named Charles is stuck in my memory of that day. While a lot of the boys were busy with activities from carving, reading, crafts, table tennis, or eating, he was sitting on a bench doing nothing form the time we got there until the time that we were about to leave.

I began to speak with Charles about school and some of his plans. I asked why he was sitting with everyone that was doing carving, and wasn’t also carving. He told me that he didn’t know how. I then asked him why he doesn’t learn. He told me that he wanted to learn the craft after he finished JSS (the level of schooling that he was in). I tried to understand why he needed to wait to learn to carve, as he really wasn’t doing anything else.

I then remembered a comment from a few of the people working at the facility. They mentioned that there was now a generation that had been born on the street as the children of street children. They described a particular challenge with many of these children, as they don’t know a different life and often don’t want to do anything. Even with games and sports, the staff said that, "they just prefer to sit around all day and hang-out".

I encouraged Charles to try the carving. At the very least, I got him to smile.

As we left, we got into a taxi and headed into central Accra to follow-up on a vague announcement that the National Theatre had a play running that week called “Streetism”. We really weren’t sure whether it had anything to do with street children, but it was worth checking out.

On the way, while in the taxi, an unfamiliar song came onto the radio with the familiar voice of Atlanta Emcee Ludacris. As the first verse began he started to describe a young girl at the age of 9 who was being beaten by a step parent, and had run away from home. The second verse spoke of a the year old that had been raped and also left home. The third verse spoke of an eleven year old girl, with alcoholism and no love at home, who fell into the allure of the streets. As we listened to the song, it echoed the main reasons children leave home as was laid out to us in our interviews by workers that had been involved with children in the streets of Accra for the last 15 years.

Leaving the taxi, and moving towards the theatre, we saw a young girl sitting under a tree, beside the road with a small baby.

Franklyn then turned to me and told me, “you are making me see my city in a different way”. He continued, “I always see street children, but I never thought about their lives or their stories. I never thought of why they are there”.

As was learning as much as him and knew as little as he did coming into. With that said, I felt a certain peace.

Back in July when I was involved with the JHR orientation, I was shown an info video. On the video there was a Ghanaian journalist that made a comment about the role of JHR: she said something about it all boiling down to telling people’s stories. She said that if you can share someone’s story, then people will feel it and that will make the biggest difference.

That was a guiding perspective for me coming into a line of work that was so unique. I really just wanted to work with journalists and facilitate the communication of people’s stories; to see the stories that are really everywhere you look, and sharing them with our audiences.

Walking down the street with Franklyn, I was seeing the fulfillment of the words of that woman, which had resonated in me as being true.

Oh, turned out that the play was about street children...talk about timing.