Horizonte de Crianças – A Brighter Horizon for Homeless Children
Neli is living in Beira, a city on the coastline of Mozambique. She has travelled to a lot of places and got a lot of experience and images from all around the world. But always when she is back in her hometown something makes her restless. Seeing a number of kids out there living on the streets, begging for some food or some money, just made her look out for a solution. Together with a few friends she made a plan to create a safe space for those children and give them a brighter future.
Not all children who are homeless end up living in the open on the street. Many end up sleeping in very inappropriate but out of sight places – on the floors of friends’ or strangers’ places, or in temporary accommodations. Economic poverty plays a major role, although other factors are of equally of high importance. These can include: parental deaths, parental neglect and other social factors such as violence and abuse of children at home or within communities.
Discrimination, lack of access to justice, a lack of legal status (due to a lack of birth registration for example) all contribute to a situation where a child is living or working on the street.
Horizonte de Crianças is a group of 15 people that wants to construct a house for street children as well as for children from vulnerable families; families that have no regular income at all and who are sending their children out for begging. The project will offer housing for those children and give them food and a safe place to live a normal life. The parents of those kids will also get a professional training in the centre attached to the hostel, to improve their chances to create an income.
The professional training centre will focus on practical work as well; for example, there will be a course for recycling in which the parents are able to learn how to transform waste into practical and useful things of the daily life.
As education gives you the essential skills to master the normal struggles of live the project will also address this important area. Together with the local municipality “Horizonte de Crianças” want to open up a primary school especially for orphans and children out of vulnerable families.
