Glue boys – a childhood on Kenya’s streets
“On cold concrete floors, all over the city, lie hundreds of children fast asleep. Their skinny bodies are covered in plastic bags or blankets as they sleep right next to each other to escape the cold and rigid nights.”
Glue Boys: A Childhood on the Streets of Kenya
The article and photo series, "Glue Boys: A Childhood on the Streets of Kenya" was initially featured in Hufvudstadsbladet in Swedish.
It is five o'clock in the morning, a cold mist lies upon the small Kenyan town of Kitale. Only if you walk around the empty town in the break of dawn you will notice the part of life that society is hiding. On cold concrete floors, all over the city, lie hundreds of children fast asleep. Their skinny bodies are covered in plastic bags or blankets as they sleep right next to each other to escape the cold and rigid nights. As the first rays of light are slipping through the trees the town is slowly awakening. Some children are running into the damp and misty fog while a young boy brings out an old t-shirt and starts cleaning up the children's urine and dirt from the concrete floors. There is a silent agreement with the city dwellers that the street children are allowed to sleep on the cold floors of the town, as long as every trace of them ever being there is erased in the morning. Nobody wants to know where the homeless children sleep at night. As the morning slowly turns into day, the children stand on the dark side of society, watching the life they never got to be a part of.
As darkness falls over the Kenyan landscapes, homeless children congregate on the fringes of society. Fires ignite on the dumps surrounding the city of Kitale. As the cold slowly encroaches, tea is brewed on the dumps, and children huddle together to welcome the night, living together on the streets that have become their domain.
Nestled in the valleys between Mt. Elgon and the Cherangani Hills in Kenya lies the agricultural city of Kitale. This area, known as the White Highlands, bears remnants of colonial times. The outdated railway bisects the city, and Kitale's prestigious golf club is erected atop the old slave market. Today, the buildings crumble into ruins overtaken by small shops, street food vendors, and workshops.
In the city's forgotten corners, I find Kenya's dirtiest children, the "glue boys." They are homeless and runaway children who have made the streets of Kitale their home. Together, these children are known by the infamous name Chokora, which in Swahili translates to "street children" or "scavengers." In the dumps, they can be seen scavenging for fruit or stale food. Locally, they are also called glue boys, often seen inhaling the fumes of industrial glue to suppress hunger, feelings, and the cold at night. According to UNICEF, there are currently 2.6 million orphaned children in Kenya, of which 250,000–300,000 live on the streets. Today, homeless children can be found in virtually every city in Kenya.
Street children are not unique to Africa; they exist worldwide. In Rio de Janeiro, they are labeled criminals (Marigianis), in Vietnam they are known as dust children (Bui doi), and in Bolivia, they are called moths (Polillas). Together, they form a group that is beaten, chased away, and scorned.
A Lost Child
About a year ago, Brian fled his home to live on the streets of Kitale. He is ten years old. In his hand, he clutches a dented blue plastic bottle with yellow glue at the bottom. He is one of the street boys seen wandering the city's bustling crowds. Looking into Brian's eyes, I see a wild mix of stubbornness and freedom. His gaze struggles to remain steady, and he sways. Before me stands a lost child. For about a year, he has lived on the street, and Brian is now one of the children who refuse to leave street life.
Despite the streets being a violent and eerie place to live, many of the street children refuse outside help. Brian's parents are dead, or at least that's what he claims. Sometimes he says his mother died, sometimes his father. He speaks vaguely about where he came from, and his story often changes. Brian falls silent when talking about his childhood home.
“I don't remember where it was,” he replies, looking down at the ground. Tonight, the children are waiting for Brian to unpack the blankets they hid in a plastic bag the previous morning. It's about ten in the evening, and it has been pitch dark for three hours already. This morning, they woke up on a cold stone floor outside a small hotel. One of the boys rinsed the veranda with dirty water, slowly erasing all traces of the street children with a small rag. No one wants to know that the children spend the night on their veranda. “The nights are the worst, I get beaten,” says Brian when I ask him how he sleeps. The previous night, someone stole his shoes while he slept on a hotel veranda.
After receiving their blankets, the chilled children crawl under them, this time beneath the vendors' wooden kiosks. Soon, they drift into a world of dreams.
Friends in Adversity
There is no exact figure on how many children live on the streets of Kitale, but estimates range from 500 to 1,000 children. On the streets, they form bonds of friendship so strong that many children refuse to give up street life and the group. Lacking parents, they take care of one another. Where they lack food, the older street children provide their younger friends with a bit of glue. Ten cents buys the glue they inhale to escape reality. The small groups of children sleep together, and during the day, they stand behind each other in any quarrel. The adversity street children face in society leads to a strong solidarity among them. In hardship, they find their friends.
To understand why the street can seem an inviting refuge, we must also understand the background of the street children phenomenon in Kenya. Some reasons date back to the 20th century when the British left Kenya. During colonial times, many people were deprived of their land and became homeless. Along with the turmoil the country has undergone in recent years, many people have been placed in refugee camps. Some of the street children we see in cities.
Do you want to help?
Through this photo essay, we have been able to gather more than 21 000 euros for the street children.
a lot of these children are now enrolled in school.
The organization Child rescue Kenya (CRK) focus on Child Welfare in Kenya, though in a very broad sense. CRK run and facilitate a variety of projects that are key to protecting children, empowering families and promoting children’s rights, and helping to steer Kenyan society towards a more just and caring future. From street intervention to bio-intensive agriculture, child protection to community clinics, CRK ensures wide participation by taking projects into communities and bringing communities into projects. Annually CRK directly benefits over 5,000 people. The vast majority are children.
Skills training for marginalised youth in Kitale
In collaboration with Co:operaid, Jernroth returned to Kitale, Kenya, to follow up on the work Child Rescure Kenya and Co:operaid do in assisting young people living on the streets or in the slums in the city of Kitale, Kenya. The aid project "Ujuzi Kwa Vijana" supports young people in entering the world of work and helps them on their way to an independent and self-determined life. With the help of Child Rescue Kenya (CRK), the young people are taken off the streets and given a perspective. They are organised in self-help groups in which they support each other. During a 12-month intensive training phase, the youth acquire skills and abilities in trades such as dressmaking, mechanics or hairdressing. They also receive active support in finding a job or setting up their own business. One goal of the program is also for the young people to pass on their newly acquired skills to other members of their support group.
The images displayed below portrait the work of CRK and Co:operaid.
