Exploring the world of children and youth living on the street in Cape Town, this book invites you into the lives of those who have been forced by circumstances to cope on their own. The language of the street is a mixture of slang, hand signs, gestures and looks. Forming intense bonds amongst themselves, strollers don't easily trust or allow outsiders in. Represented as vermin and tourist deterrents in the media, the youth are marginalised and rarely given opportunities to express themselves. Through drawings, extracts from interviews and pieces of creative writing accompanying these photographs, children and youth contribute to this project, providing insight into their predicaments, aspirations, fears and dreams. This book is dedicated to all children and youth growing up without love and care wherever they may be.
Many, many thanks to everyone who shared their lives, wisdom and dreams with us Introduction This book emerges from an intense two year long experience which involved workshops and time spent with several groups of children and youth living on the streets of Cape Town. This led to the production of an hour long documentary giving the children and youth an opportunity to freely express themselves without the interference of an "expert" speaking on their behalf. The process was based upon a participatory approach where visual art, drama, storytelling and video literacy workshops took place in addition to interviewing and filming. Through the sharing of creative skills, a relationship based on mutual respect was established. The materials gathered during this extended period went beyond the scope of the video and so this publication and a travelling educational exhibition were born. The pages to follow present a collaged reality of children's lives on the street without excluding their homes and communities they originally some from. This is what is happening to the children as told through their own words and drawings. Hear their truths and take them to heart. We trust that through this publication the children's hardships and suffering but more importantly their aspirations and dreams will be brought a bit closer to your reality. The first step to making a difference is understanding what the children and youth are experiencing. As one youth put it to us;
"Maybe you want to help but you don't know what the problem is." Other-Wise-media with youth, a non profit initiative, is committed to making media accessible to young people from marginalised and troubled backgrounds, especially female children and young women. We produce awareness raising programmes addressing topics that are undermined in the mainstream media. We work collaboratively involving those who know about and are affected by the issues in the production process thus demystifying the media and transferring valuable skills at the same time. We aim to promote a genuine exchange of peoples' experience and culture in the media, communicating with, not at people.
THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU CLOSE THAT DOOR an excerpt from a radio documentary made by Babalwa Nani about her life as part of a radio training course with Other-Wise media with youth. Being a stroller is not that you like it. The situation starts at home. You leave home, you go to the streets. You don't know what you will meet there. We are children from different places, homes and cultures, some people won't understand, we speak in Afrikaans, English and Xhosa. If you don't know, you will learn those languages. Communication is there in a very special way. People look at us as if we are naughty. Is not easy to tell another person what is going on with your life. It's been a long time on the street for me. I go to the streets and go back home and go back to the streets, its my routine.
One day I said, today I'm not going back home. I took a train, the Simonstown line, I got off at Rondebosch. I was walking up and down on the main road. As the day passed I saw some people sitting by the fire. I was cold, I had not many clothes. When I got there I was afraid, they asked my name, I introduced myself. They asked me, "Are you new around here ?" they were laughing at me. They were sniffing this thing. I also wanted to sniff this glue, but they wouldn't give it to me. I saw them sleeping by the fire. They said a sleeping place is not a problem. Church people served supper around 9 o'clock. These people come every Monday and serve supper. I didn't think of home much. It's nicer here. Nobody is going to tell me what it do. I'm satisfied to stay here in Rondebosch behind Pick 'n Pay. We slept under the bridge. It was quite comfortable to sleep there. It was warm, water was right there under that bridge, we washed our washing, we cooked at night. Money was not difficult to find, we stood at the shopping centre begging, "Sorry medem, have you got a fifty cents for me?''
At night when we sit around the fire, we tell stories from the location. We sing songs, some church songs, we come from different churches. You will be surprised when you hear us. You can see the expression on our faces. We sing the all night. A nice beautiful choir comes out of that. We do have a talent. We keep ourselves happy, it goes on and on. We started committing crime. They said we are going to hunt for something. I asked why should we go out? They said begging was a waste of time. We started breaking into houses. With the money we didn't buy food, we bought glue and liquor. We didn't worry much about food.
Glue, they didn't sell glue to younger boys and girls. You had to be older. Glue was like a rubber sticky thing. When you smoke it you are in another world. You see funny things. You see snakes, you'll laugh alone. You'll cry, you'll be in action, you pretend you are a movie star, a singer... You must know glue can make you very hungry. It wrinkles your stomach. You can eat 3 or 4 times and still want another loaf of bread. But now they are not into glue, its thinners. Thinners came with the new South Africa. It does the same thing as glue, you see funny things. Another person will say this child is mad. If someone try to take away your thinners, you will have a lot of power, you can hit this person. It will be a war if you take away the thinners. If we wanted to housebreak we sniffed glue, so not to be scared. Sniffing glue makes you bold, you don't care about the neighbours. You get arrested. I was 15 years old at that time. It was my first time. As we lay in the cell, the girls were all together, I asked : "Aren't you scared ?" They said, " No, we are used to it." In the cell, the toilet is there, you eat there, you sleep there, it was quite an adventure.
When we appeared in court in front of the magistrate, my mother was also there. One thing I thought, I've broken my mother's heart to please my friends. We were all sentenced to 3 years in prison, but we were under age so we went to a place of safety to complete our study and put our mind off crime.
After all I have been travelling, winter in and winter out, summer in, summer out there is no gain in such a life. There is no gain to be a street kid. I don't encourage any one to be a street kid. If it weren't for some friends, I don't know where I would be today. There have been people who can listen to my problem and open their heart to me. But on the other hand, now I have come to a point where I'm sick and tired of the life I'm leading. I want to complete my study. After this I want to make it up to my daughter for all the years I couldn't be on her side. I would like to have my own business one day. Babalwa Nani Contact Other-Wise to order a copy of this publication This publication was funded by Umverteilen, Stiftung fur eine Solidarische Welt Other-Wise would like to thank the following people for their support and assistance Giovanni Bagna, Ntombi Barnes, Zimasa Bongoza, Rosi Campbell, Gaby Cheminais, Charmaine Carrol, Coleridge Daniels, Suzette Daniels, Kathleen Davids, Dexter Mauritz, NinnetteEliasov, David Fortune, John W.Fredericks, Gogo, Felix Grove, Marion Keim, Zurina Lalla, Martin L., Glen Leedenberg, Lulamile Mohapi, Nicola Murray, Babalwa Nani, Max Nkala, Martin Ngwenyana, Nkosnathi Ngxalaba, Don Pinnock, Janny Poley, Phumlani Runei, Ute Sprenger, Jos Thorne, Guido Vaglio, Michael Wentworth Additional projects of Other-Wise contributing towards this book were supported by The City of Cape Town (Community Development, Arts and Cultural Services) The City of Turin (Cultural Affairs) South African Department of Art, Culture, Science and Technology Open Society Foundation for South Africa (OSFSA) The Royal Netherlands Embassy Robben Island Museum Kinderen in de Knel, Children at Risk (Netherlands) Thank you to all !
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