Marginalized Knowledge: An Agenda for Indigenous Knowledge Development and Integration with Other Forms of Knowledge

Evaluation of reunification programmes rendered by service providers with respect to street children and their families/households.
S.J. Magagula⁵³ [e-mail],

Department of Social Work

University of Zululand

South Africa

Summary

This research evaluates the reunification programmes that are supposedly provided to street children by the service providers. The research also seeks to know the role played by the government policies to eradicate or improve the said escalation of street children. It examines why street children abscond from the institutions and return to the streets. The research speculates that they behave this way because no reunification programmes are used in these institutions. The research also asks whether if such programmes are available they are ever evaluated and whether or not they are effective enough. If no, who are the people involved during their evaluations? What can then be done in order to improve the lives of these street children? Previous research mainly concentrates on the causes of street children. There is no research that has focused on evaluating the reunification programmes that are rendered by service providers in the child care institutions. Lastly, the researcher intends to draw a Behaviour Modification Treatment Model (BMTM) and a Participatory Action Research Manual that will be used by the agencies who deal with homelessness children be it on their own choices or through push and pull factors. Hopefully this manual will rehabilitate the misbehaviours of these children.

Introduction

There are many researched documents that have been written with particular reference to street children. Some authors appear to have concentrated on quantitative study of either children on the street and or children of the street. The distinction between the two is that the children on the street are those who remain permanently on the street, while children of the street are those who may remain on the street for a day but return to their respective families in the afternoon or evening.

A quote from Le Roux (1996) in Hickson & Gaydon (1989) notes that it is believed that in South Africa, street children are the results of apartheid ideology, a system in which black children were the worst victims of apartheid as compared to other groups. The vast majority of an estimated 9, 000 street children in South Africa (SA) are black. There are virtually no white street children in SA. There are 10 000 white children in 160 state-registered and subsidized children’s homes. On April 27, 1994, SA embarked on non-racial democratic elections with the hope of bringing about change. This was highlighted by the awarding of the Nobel Peace prize to Mr De Klerk and President Nelson Mandela in 1993. This prize was symbolizing that children’s lives were to be improved by the said two men. But this again brought no change to the rife stage of street children who wonders around the streets even now.
Street children do not benefit from traditional facilities hereinafter called places of safety, shelters or drop-in-centres which are meant to rehabilitate the anti-social behaviour to the expected good behaviour. It is, however, noted that there are children who live on the streets because of no choice of their own. They are often from very poor homes where their basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter are not met. This research therefore intends to urgently investigate the operation of the shelters and look at their reunification programs in order to assist with the formulation of new strategies and the compilation of standardised manuals for all children shelters. The research also evaluates the existing policies and whether or not they aggravate the problem even further.