Agape contains 4 stages.

Stage 1: outreach

Stage 2: the drop-in center

Stage 3: the home

Stage 4: resettlement

The outreach.

During an outreach social workers from the center go into the slums. Innocent does that and she takes Moses along, one of the older kids, who has been there from the start of the drop-in center. Moses knows a lot of the kids in the street and they listen to him and then he takes them to Innocent who tries to convince them to come to the drop-in center.

Life in the slums is not easy. The kids work to survive. They collect plastic (bottles) and metal and they sell it to a guy in the streets and they get some money for it, which enables them to buy food. They sleep wherever they can. To get through the day and to just forget a lot of them use drugs. They sniff a blend of kerosene (yes the stuff plains fly on, but here they use it for kerosene lamps and you can buy it everywhere and it is cheap) and glue. Kids live in the streets for all kind of reasons, for instance both parents died (in the war of from HIV/aids), the father died or the parents got divorced and the new man in moms live doesn’t want to raise the kids from another father, kids are beaten at home, or they have alcoholic parent(s) or both and they just ran away.

I went along with two outreaches and it is hard to see. Most kids we saw, have been in the center before and we just pursued them to go to the center instead of hanging on the streets, but most kids have to walk quite far to the center and they just hang in the street and do not always feel like coming. They just play soccer, hang around in video halls and play pool at outside pool tables or they work. But we also ‘found’ new kids, they hardly speak any English and they walk around in torn and very dirty clothes. Innocent talks to them and tells them what the drop-in center offers the kids and most of the times they come along. One of the times I went along on an outreach, three new kids walked with us to the center.

The drop-in center.

When a new kid arrives at the drop-in center the kid first gets a bath and then he gets new clothes. After this Innocent tries to get as much information out of the kid as possible regarding his living situation, how he ended up on the street and his family. She will have this conversation about three times in a few weeks and if the story is consistent she puts it in the file of the kid. Agape needs as much information as possible if they are going to resettle the kid. In the drop-in center they get food, lessons and (craft) activities. They also get the chance to bath and to wash their clothes. If they take the program seriously and if the staff thinks the kid is a ready to move on and if there is space the kid will move into the home.

The boys-home.

Around 15 boys are living in the home. They are there 24/7. The home is their family. The teacher lives on the premises and the ‘mother’ of all the boys, who cooks and cares for the kids also lives there with her own son and daughter. Also Philip one of the social workers lives there and is responsible for the boys 24/7. At the home they have normal classes and activities, the kids do duties and they go to church every Sunday. Agape teaches the boys values and they make sure they are ready to go back home and back to a regular school. The goal of Agape is to ‘resettle’ the boys back home or with other close family.

Resettlement.

When the boy is ready the resettlement takes place. The boy will go back to his parent(s) or close family. Agape offers the family a resettlement package, which contains a mattress, food, school supplies, a uniform for school and money for school fees amongst other things.

Sometimes there is no family and then Agape stays their home, but the older boys usually go to a boarding school then (for instance to the school of mechanics) and they are only at the home during holidays. Agape pays for their school fees. When the boy has a diploma and a job, they are on their own.