Nairobi: Begging for food on the streets is an occurrence that’s relegated to the furthest point of imagination on one’s mind, especially if matters seem smooth sailing. However, a single turn can twist that image in the opposite direction.
According to Kenya News Agency, a mother of three, Millicent Atieno, 36, has experience in street life. She developed resilience through the hardships that she was exposed to on the streets. She now lives in Siaya. It is difficult for her to dislodge the mental pictures of when she once thought she had fallen in love. ‘He was a matatu conductor and a musician. We ended up together. We got two children,’ she says. Beatings from her man soon set in. ‘He would hit me so often that neighbours would tell me to leave him. But I stayed on.’
She later attempted another relationship through cohabitation, but it too flopped. Another baby had arrived. She ended up on the streets to beg for food for her two boys and a girl. Solace for her and her children came through Kusitawi Village Children’s Home, which is one of the almost 30 authorized rescue centres in the country. While there, she was assisted to heal physically, psychologically, and emotionally.
Atieno dropped out of school in 2006 while in form three. She began working in hotels near her home area until the end of 2008. She later moved to Nairobi to work as a house help. During Atieno’s first relationship, she worked as a conductor on a city route that the father of her children plied. One of her sons wasn’t spared from the violence meted out by the man.
‘When my son was two-and-a-half years old, he started having convulsions and this made my work and caring for him difficult,’ she says. The beatings continued relentlessly. ‘I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to leave with my children,’ she says. She relocated to Busia to minimize contact with the father of her children. She engaged in manual jobs, hoping to begin acquiring some property. ‘My boy’s convulsions persisted and a doctor told me that my baby would live with the convulsions throughout his life,’ she says. The urge to seek alternative treatment for her son swallowed all her meagre savings.
The father of her children was not offering child support. ‘I started going to friends for help but it was short-lived,’ she says. ‘My child’s condition worsened. I became depressed. I lost him in 2019.’ Atieno attempted business. It didn’t work. Her troubles were compounded by her frequent admission to hospital due to illness.
‘I met another man and fell in love again,’ she says. ‘He was married but I did not mind as he was a good man.’ She got pregnant in 2020. It wasn’t as she imagined it would be. ‘The beatings I used to get from my first husband affected my back. I started using crutches.’ In a case of misuse and dump, Atieno’s woes kept pursuing her. No help was forthcoming. Her former colleagues in the matatu industry convinced her to return to Nairobi for medical attention. A doctor advised her that the kind of treatment available couldn’t be done while she was pregnant. Since she couldn’t work, ‘I started begging for food,’ she says.
Begging became an addiction for her. ‘Since you’ll never miss someone to give you some money or food, begging continues,’ she says. Her health during pregnancy deteriorated. A lady sympathizer persuaded her to return to Busia where she’d set up a shop for her. While there, her baby was born.
‘My new baby’s father told me he would only assist us if I moved near to Bungoma where he was living,’ she says. ‘I agreed but this was short-term as his wife noticed something was amiss and it did not take long for her to trace me.’ At that time, she was pregnant again. Once beaten, twice shy hadn’t applied to her. She had remained gullible.
The man lost interest, cut ties with her completely and vanished from her life. ‘He stopped paying for my house rent in Bungoma. Things became even more difficult. I resorted to begging.’ She narrates that a lady friend invited her to Nairobi. She acceded. Her pregnancy had advanced. When she arrived with her children, the lady who was to meet her at the bus station never showed up.
She couldn’t think of where to go. She became a wanderer in town. She would approach passersby who would listen to her story and walk away. She took what she thought was a bold move. She decided, ‘I would go to a police station, declare that I was a careless mother who couldn’t care for her children and ask them to take me to court. At least my children would be taken to a children’s home while I’m sent to jail.’
Police officers took her to the children’s office. She reinforced that she wasn’t fit to be a mother. ‘At that time, I began bleeding and I was just given a room to sleep in. That was in December 2021.’ The following day, she and her children were ferried to Kusitawi village. I learned that it was a rescue centre. There were other women and children there, too.
The Street Families Rehabilitation Trust Fund (SFRTF) seeks to rescue, rehabilitate, reintegrate, and resocialize street families. It also aims at preventing families from ending up on the streets. SFRTF Board Chair, Mary Wambui says, ‘Such a family starts a new life that takes three months.’ She adds, ‘They are served meals, they take a bath, and the clothes they arrive with are burned. A medical check-up is conducted on each one of them.’
‘I felt comfortable. My children and I could eat. We were taken for a medical checkup,’ Atieno says. It was discovered that she was anaemic. She was also depressed. ‘I gave birth to a preterm baby at six months.’ Her baby stayed in the nursery for several months. ‘Different caregivers from Kusitawi brought me food. My bills covering the duration of my entire stay there were paid.’ She stayed at Kusitawi for four months.
After her release from the rescue centre, she went back to Bungoma. The centre paid her rent for two months and fed her for one week. She was given some tools for making soap. ‘I vowed not to go back to the streets,’ she says although she’s still struggling to make ends meet. She now lives in Bondo where a former schoolmate of hers is housing her. ‘I do manual jobs, wash clothes and cook for others. I can feed my family.’ She says that it’s important for a mother not to abandon her children.
The SFRTF Ag. CEO Caroline Towett says, ‘Some of these individuals have been on the streets for long and need behavioural change. Others have used drugs and therefore need detoxification.’ The founder and Director of Kusitawi Village Children’s Home, Mary Gitau, a former teacher, says that for 15 years the centre has been rescuing vulnerable street families and children in need of care and protection.
At the onset of COVID-19, several street families, especially children, both boys and girls, were rescued from the streets of Nairobi, Ruiru, Thika, and Machakos. ‘Some of the women are rehabilitated from trauma,’ Gitau says. ‘They learn positive parenting and a skill. They take their children to school.’
While undergoing rehabilitation, many rescued mothers recover from exposure to drugs and substance abuse. They become more responsible. Skills for economic empowerment are attainable at these rescue centres. Hairdressing, food and beverage production, dressmaking, agriculture, and gardening are some of them.
‘As they leave to go back to the community, we help them with the startup capital for their businesses to prevent them from going back to the streets,’ Gitau says. Since 2020, Gitau says they have rescued more than 300 families. 75 families were rescued in 2024. These had an average of 2 children.
Towett says the national policy on the rehabilitation of street families gives guidelines on how to make follow-ups on the beneficiaries of the rehabilitation programme, after having been reintegrated into the community. The social workers within the rescue centres which constitute the bulk of the partners of the SFRTF do the follow-ups. Another key partner is UNICEF.
Gitau is convinced that poor parenting is one of the root causes of spilling many children onto the streets. Poverty and Gender-Based Violence are other reasons. Kusitawi village is based in Thika East within Kiambu County. It was founded in 2004 and was formally registered in 2007.
‘The government is this year planning a nationwide census aimed at identifying and rehabilitating street families to ensure they receive proper living conditions,’ says Towett.