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

Findings

Findings from all 4 phases were discussed as follows:

Street children: The findings revealed that although there are also female street children (17%) but most of them are males (83%). Some started living on the street at the age of 5years (11%) and from ages between 6 – 18 years were 89%. It was found that 31% were born by religious families and had absconded from their respective homes whilst 69% belonged to no church at all. These results reflected that street life is a psychopathology irrespective whether a child is born by Christians or anti-Christ families. However, most street children (69%) belonged to no church at all.
When asked about their demographic background 73% disclosed that they were from rural areas where the infrastructure is still very poor. 29% were from semi-rural areas but peer pressure pulled them to the streets. Due to high rate of poverty 36.66% were the next-of-kin (relatives to biological parents) who worked and provided support (39.39%).

When asked why they left home, adults abuse was cited as the key reason. Even literature concurs that other street children run away from homes where there is physical, sexual and emotional abuse (Retrieved from computer Documents and Settings/smagagul/Desktop/Street Children.htm dated 2006/09/19). Street children in the sample had poor academic achievements. Most were school drop-out before their street life. The explanations provided by the children include financial problems, hunger, a desire for freedom, adult abuse and stealing. (89%) of those interviewed confessed to having repeatedly left shelters after a week or two and returned to the streets instead of going back home. Only 11% who had not left because it was their first week of arrival in the shelters.

They unanimously argued that shelters kept them occupied with house chores, playing cards, and other in-door games and no reunification programmes whatsoever. These statements justified the researcher’s hypotheses that shelters have no reunification programmes. 45.45% children preferred that parents should pay more attention to their children’s needs. 36.36% children felt that parents should get employment in order to provide physiological needs of children such as food, clothing, education and shelter. 18.18% respondents believed that parents should stop corporal punishment. Subjects who were interviewed as case studies, although they were interviewed in separate places from one another, came out with similar suggestion that the phenomenon might be eradicated if street children, families and service providers became involved in the planning and evaluation of reunification programs. With the case studies the researcher tried to adapt what is possible and more importantly what is likely to yield a better picture of why children do not reunite with their families after leaving from the shelters. Case studies help the researcher to ‘get under the skin’ of those researched and view them from the inside out (Gillman, 2000:11).