Der er et sted i Tanzanias største by, hvor børn – alle børn – er velkomne; og det er en livsbekræftende oplevelse at komme på besøg
Af Johanne Højbjerg Møller
specialestuderende
Being a daily anchor for more than 200 children, Kigamboni Community Centre in Dar es Salaam seeks to secure the future for misfortuned children.
The centre, initiated in 2007 by five young guys with a dream to make a difference, provides children with free education, development of talents and not least stability and comfort.
You may not notice it if you do not know it is there, but opposite the police station in Kigamboni, Dar es Salaam, tucked away in a back yard, is Kigamboni Community Centre.
Come by Monday through Saturday and you will immediately meet children, welcoming you to their place.
No wonder, as Kigamboni Community Centre is the children’s place. A place for them to catch up in school, to develop their talents, to meet new friends and to have people around them to rely on.
The Centre wants to give a helping hand to children with troubled backgrounds; street children, orphans (forældreløse) or children from poor or challenged families.
For these children, the place is an opportunity to find some of the things they have been missing: School. Friends. Activities. Comfort.
Giving back
Kigamboni Community Centre was initiated in 2007 by five young guys, all of who came from troubled backgrounds themselves: life on the streets, loss of parents or a childhood in very poor families.
With help from people arund them, they managed to turn their lives into something better, and founding Kigamboni Community Centre was a way for them to give something back.
Festo Chengula, chairman and founder of the Community Centre, spent three years of his childhood living on the streets in Dar.
– I came to a street children centre here in this part of town and they helped me back to primary school with support from organisations in town. My dream is to do the same for these children as someone did to me. To help back. That is how I got the idea to start this place, Festo Chengula explains.
In 2009, with help from private donors, NGO’s and volunteers, Kigamboni Community Centre was approved as an NGO and today 17 volunteers help out in the centre, supporting and teaching the approximately 200 children who use the premises on a daily basis.
The children either show up at the centre on their own or they have been invited to come by volunteers from the centre, who walk the streets of Dar at night to find children in need of a helping hand.
– More and more children hear about our place, but we still need to create more awareness. Too many children do not know about their opportunities, Festo Chengula explains.
School comes first
Kigamboni Community Centre offers school facilities for children who have fallen behind or dropped out of school.
With help from volunteering teachers, the centre offers free teaching in the afternoon to give the children a better chance to come back to the public school system.
– Our aim is to provide free education, so the children will do better and get into good schools. It is not too late for them, Festo Chengula notes, showing one of the two small classrooms in the centre, full of anticipating (forventningsfulde) children.
Last year 12 children from Kigamboni Community Centre were accepted into public schools after attending free teaching at the centre.
– That is a really big achievement for us. They could have been living on the streets, and now they are back in school, Festo Chengula says proudly.
Besides education, the centre focuses on development of talents within areas as music, dancing, fine arts and sports. Talent training is a chance for the children to have fun with a specific activity, but it is also an investment in the children’s future.
– Talents can become employment later. They can make money, buy their own things, have a future. That is really important to us – to give them good tools for their future, Festo Chengula states, walking past Kigamboni Community Centre’s team of acrobats, which is becoming well-known in Dar for its impressive perfomances.
New land, new future
Every day, Kigamboni Community Centre and its activities are expanding, and the small premises in Kigamboni town is getting too small for the growing number of children.
For the same reason, the centre, with the help from donors and money from the acrobatic team’s performances, has bought a new piece of land. In the nearest future this land will set the frame for the new Kigamboni Community Centre.
It will bring more space for education and activities and, even as important, it will create financial safety for the centre, which will then no longer depend on the government’s good will.
– The government owns this land (hvor centret ligger nu, red.), they gave it to us for free. But that means they can take it back any day if they decide they want to use it again. We do not want to risk that, Festo Chengula says and continues to explain about the new plot:
– It is a three acres (1,2 hektar) plot about 14 kilometres from here. We still need to develop the land and to get a certificate and then we will be ready to move there, he says.
The size of the new place will allow Kigamboni Community Centre to build more classrooms and offices, and they hope to be able to build houses for volunteers who come to work for the centre.
First and foremost, the new land will provide the centre with more space to the children. And space to allow for even more children to use the centre.
Every week new children come to the centre to seek help, education and comfort. And all of the children are welcome, today and in the future.
– The children come here by themselves, and we just accept them. We accept them all. I think they are really happy here, Festo Chengula concludes.
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Johanne Højbjerg Møller (26) har en BA-grad i medievidenskab fra Aarhus Universitet og er i gang med at færdiggøre en kandidatuddannelse i journalistik, som hedder cand.public.
Hun har været i praktik på den danske ambassade i Dar es Salaam og skriver nu speciale om mobiltelefoner som redskab til udvikling i sundhedssystemet på Zanzibar. Det sker via et dansk-støttet projekt “Wired Mothers”, som ved hjælp af mobiltelefoni søger at bekæmpe den høje mødredødelighed på ø-gruppen.
Hun er netop vendt hjem fra endnu en tur til Tanzania, hvor hun sammen med sin specialemakker indsamlede materiale til deres speciale.
