Tikondane care for Children (on and off the streets) celebrated its 25 years of existence in Malawi on Saturday the 2nd of September, 2023 at St. Maria Goretti Girls Secondary school in the Archdiocese of Lilongwe.
Tikondane Child care is a response to Bishop Ziyaye’s call to care for the abandoned and neglected children in the city of Lilongwe and beyond. In 1997 the then Catholic Bishop of Lilongwe, Rt. Rev T.G Ziyaye assembled all Religious Congregations in the Diocese to answer to this growing problem. The Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa (MSOLA) also known as the White Sisters answered to this call as they had some sisters who were social workers and Sr. Rita Hieble (MSOLA) took the lead in the response in addressing the emerging problem. This is how Tikondane was founded in 1998.
Speaking during the Eucharistic celebration, the Vicar General Of the Archdiocese of Lilongwe, acting in and on behalf of the Archbishop of Lilongwe Archdiocese George Desmond Tambala said “Celebrating this Jubilee today is an opportunity to appreciate Tikondane’s noble work, create awareness about children’s rights and call upon all of you stakeholders parents/guardians and general public to take in hand your responsibility of protecting and safeguarding children from harm and abuse. This is in view of having a just, loving and caring society in which all people are fully involved in the care and protection of all children and young people.”
Very reverend Fr. Vincent Mwakhwawa pleaded with the management of Tikondane to invite and involve more parishes as collaborators in this noble work and train more Catholic movements like CWO, CMO Legion of Mary, Atumiki and many more to share in this ministry. “When children are withdrawn from streets, they are brought to Tikondane transit shelter, where their basic needs are catered for, these include: the running of the shelter, supporting them in their schooling, the processes of reintegration, staffing of those who take care of them …All these require a lot of resources: financial, material and human resources, therefore we need to pull resources together” alluded Fr Mwakhwawa.
It is to the conviction of Tikondane that “The children on the streets live in dehumanized conditions and face a lot stigma from the general public as such they called with different names such “street children” or “Amasikini” as if they are fathered by the streets…… We know that the that the streets have never fathered anyone. On the contrary these children find themselves on the streets because of different reasons. Therefore, we cannot call them streets children. Tikondane respects their dignity by calling them children on the streets or streets connected children”, highlighted Sr Marie Sekina one of the directors of the center. She further said, “Therefore we offer parental counselling and skills in order that they can raise their children well. We also work with other community structures (schools, traditional leaders, child protection…) in order that the children get the intended support”.
Some of their activities in the past 25 years include:
Street outreach: social workers visit the streets in town City center Bwandilo, Gateway Mall Crossroads and other areas round town to interact with the children and offering them a chance to come to Tikondane for further support. the visits are made during the day and night in order to find the children in the places that they have made as a home.
Transit shelter: Tikondane has a 24 hours’ transit shelter where the children picked from the street, children referred to us by others organizations, and those brought by other fellow children are kept and are offered psychosocial support, individual and group counselling in order that the child can rebuild proper structures and are able to go back and fit in the society.
Family reintegration: Tikondane believes that no child should grow up in the street neither in an institution but in a family as it is the best place for a child to grow. Tikondane values the importance of the family and the contribution of primary care-givers towards the development and growth of the child. We believe that it is within their natural environment that children can grow to their full potential.
Boarding school support: this is the support that is offered to the children whose reintegration process is facing challenges and there is high risk of these children to return to the streets. The children are put in a boarding school such as Nambuma girls, Guillime boys and girls and others are in different secondary schools and textually education.
SOME OF THE ACHIEVEMENTACHIEVEMENTS
- Children supported and reintegrated from the last 5 years
In our project circle of the period between 2018-2023 (5 years) we reached out to 2066 children’s boys 1402 and 664 girls. Those who were brought to the shelter for further support were 1110 children. We manage to fully reintegrate 877 children marking 79%
- Alumni
These are some of the old children whom Tikondane supported and worked with and who are now standing on their own. Among them there is a journalist, computer engineers, an accountant, a soldier just to name few. These alumni have formed a group with the aim of motivating the new children who facing similar challenges that they went through.
- Public awareness
Through awareness raising activities we have with parents/ guardians, communities and other stakeholders with messages of children right and protection about children. The impact of the information sharing is the good collaboration with stake holders and members of general public, the number of cases child abuse cases reported and guardians seeking support from us to help their children with behavioral challenge reported to them.