Durban - Generous holidaymakers visiting Durban are handing out cash to street children begging at traffic lights and intersections - some of whom are pocketing more than R500 a day.
Many of the children are attracted to the streets during the school holidays, believing that they will make plenty of pocket money.
Now I Care, the charity which has been working to transform the lives of street children for 14 years, is appealing to the public not to give them money.
“It enables and prolongs their stay on the streets, and in turn encourages substance abuse, which, in turn, can lead to crime and all sorts of unacceptable and bad behaviour,” said Gail Elson, I Care’s marketing manager.
Elson is urging the kind-hearted public to rather support the charity, with donations helping the I Care team in their work with street children.
I Care provides counselling and daily programmes to stimulate the children in a constructive manner.
The charity also has rehabilitation centres where the children live for 12 weeks. Then an after-care programme helps them return home or find new homes.
At the I Care home in Greyville on Thursday, the Daily News met two teenagers who have been begging on the streets.
A 14-year-old explained that he had lived on the streets for years after his mother was always scolding him and had never bought him Christmas clothes.
“I decided to take care of myself since my mom failed me. I beg on the street and buy myself food and clothes”, he said, adding that life on the street was easier than at home.
His mother had asked him to return home, but he had refused, he said.
“I Care has been good to me and I’m planning to go back to school, since I don’t engage in drugs. I want to be a president one day.”
A 15-year-old boy explained that he had no choice but to leave home because they lived in one room with his twin brother, his elder sister and her boyfriend.
He had felt overcrowded and needed his privacy, he said.
He could hardly remember his father, who died when he was young.
His mother died eight years ago, leaving him with his siblings.
“I’ve been living in the street for four years now, with my twin brother. My sister tried taking us back, but she just couldn’t stop living with her boyfriend, so we could not live together as family,” he said.
The most he had made on the street was R250. He spends his money on food and clothes.
He smokes dagga, but was willing to stop as he was in the process of rehabilitation.
“As I’m addicted to dagga, I don’t crave it in ways that lead to stealing, unlike other types of drugs. I want to return to school, and have dreams just like any other child,” he said
I Care social worker, Lucia Shenge, said that one of the challenges the organisation faced was that they could not force children to get help.
“Our hands are tied, but we try by all means to speak to their parents,” she said.
“Unfortunately, some children are sent to beg on the street by their parents, as they also depend on this money.”
* To get in touch with I Care, telephone 031 572 6870 or go to www.icare.co.za
Daily News