03/07/2019
♦♦♦♦UPDATE♦♦♦UPDATE♦This will be the first update in a very long time but better late than never ♦
Since we are now waiting for the next document in line from the ministry of Justice, we decided to visit one of our targeted areas. This was our approach to see actual urgent needs of the children sleeping rough. The area is called mitendi on outskirts of Kinshasa by the national 1 road. A lady called Solange(pure coincidence) from an organisation called APEO came with us. She has been working with vulnerable children since 2001. We thought her experience in raising funds, targeting children who really needed help and women affected by war was necessary for our first field work. We got to the place ironically called "cité de Dieu" or city of God which really a market where those children sleep at night. After walking around for over 1 hour trying to be discret and we had no idea who we were dealing with. The other truth is: how do you spot a homeless kid in the daytime? We thought it would be much easy but the struggle was real. We were advised by many stall sellers that they usually "disappear" during the day looking for food and gather from the evening when markets are closed so they can use the stalls(tables) to sleep on and leave before market opens :(
The next urgent step is to visit the same market in the evening in the coming days. We need to actually speak to them. Find out how, why and why they are doing outside and what would be the best approach to reach our goal in terms of getting them or some of them indoors.
So we will be keeping you posted about our field work. We will also try to have more regular updates.
SMTF team
