Serene Assir asks how effective the work being done for street children is Six-year-old street girl Fatima, who has been spending most of her time near Cairo University's main gate, pokes 26-year-old business student Mohamed in the back and runs off. Sitting by himself lost in thoughts about the exam he's just finished, Mohamed turns around, but there is no one. Minutes later, Fatima does it -- this time he is faster. "Hey, little girl! Why did you do that?" he cries out. She stops, looks, and turns towards him. "I thought you were someone else," she says. "I thought you were a boy I know. You look like him, except he doesn't have a moustache. You wear a moustache to pretend you're big, don't you?" Surprised, Mohamed asks what gave her that idea. "I can tell. You have the heart of a child, but you pretend to be grown- up. Your heart is very strong though -- you aren't afraid of anything or anyone." She jumps into his arms, kisses him on the cheek, jumps down and runs off. Later on, as Mohamed recounts his story, he is somewhat shaken. "I have never met a child who sounds so much like an adult, so confident in her thoughts. It's true, what she said about me being a child inside, you know -- I wonder how she knew. She's only six." To some extent, at least, the answer lies in Fatima's constant exposure to the street. Everything society ascribes to being essential to the basics of proper child care, including protection, shelter, warmth and the maintenance of some kind of routine is missing from her life. "We understand more because we take care of ourselves," 16-year-old Islam, a street child who currently lives in Alexandria, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "Unlike you, we don't have the privilege of learning things one step at a time. The street is a crash course we are all subjected to. Instinctively, we know failing means we won't survive." Despite a marginal increase in awareness of street children in Egypt, it remains quite unknown how many there are. Estimates range between 200,000 and one million. The vast majority live in the country's two main cities, Cairo and Alexandria. Though the phenomenon is by no means new, NGOs, aid agencies and humanitarian networks have only recently begun to seek a more in-depth understanding of how it is that children who once lived with their families come to fend for themselves on the street, and how they lead their lives on a day-to-day basis. Alongside numerous research projects, various initiatives by NGOs and aid agencies have been launched, in a bid to help street children. Omayma El-Sheikh, who chairs the Alexandria- based Riada NGO, runs a centre aiming to provide street children with the bare minimum of services they are otherwise deprived of. "Street children are exposed to drugs, crime, prostitution and all kinds of other risks. Other children go to school, have hobbies, and lead a safe life. Our approach is based on the notion that if we give street children some of the things they are missing, then their lives will be a little better." Street children who go into the centre are offered free literacy classes, for instance. "We try to give them experience and the capacity for behaviour patterns available to other children. Later, we try to locate the parents, and step by step persuade the children that it would be positive to rejoin them. Should they not wish to do so, then we try to persuade them to enter institutions." Now, in the context of how Egyptian society has tended to see street children, giving them the freedom to go into or leave the centre at their will is a huge improvement on previous modes of dealing with them. A far more forceful approach was deployed until society gradually arrived at the institutional understanding that freedom is the most important element. More often than not, before, street children would be sought out and placed in government-run shelters, whose notoriety scares them away from anything institutional to this day. "They are not institutions," Islam said. "They are prisons. Everybody knows that. They want us to go there because that way, we're kept out of sight. Nobody has to think about us. But life inside is torture. I know many people who were there and managed to run away. The street is better than any institution." As for the drop-in centres or shelters set up by NGOs, thankfully, they are gaining in popularity. "They are nice people, and very well- meaning," Islam told the Weekly of the UNICEF and government-supported Riada, which he visits once a week. The feeling was similar at a shelter set up for young mothers who had found themselves living on the street, run by the government- supported Hope Village Society. For the most part there, the feeling was one of safety and gratitude. Still, depending on the people running the NGOs in question, there still appears to be a gap in orientation between the majority of street children and the institutions set up to help them. "I know the people who work at all the different NGOs think they are about to change my life for me," said Islam. "In reality, and I've told them as much, I visit them because they have something to give me. To be honest, an NGO isn't going to manage to persuade me to rejoin my family, or to enter an institution. What I want is to find a way to work, make some money, get a room, and maybe find a girl to marry. It is not on my agenda at all to live in an institution, and I can tell you that for the majority of us, this is the case." Asked how he felt about the negative treatment he received on the streets, whether by abusive police or by the average passer-by, who is haughty and dismissive, Islam said, "we are all children of Adam and Eve. If someone wants to be cruel to another human being, then that's their problem. Maybe they're the ones who need institutionalising." In a bid to counter social neglect, physical and psychological abuse, there have been attempts at raising awareness of the plight of street children, even among the internal security forces, who have been known to treat street children with extreme severity. "Things are improving, however slowly," said UNICEF Child Protection Officer Nevine El-Kabbag. "We are now at a stage where social solidarity with street children is on the rise for the first time, and where outreach to the children themselves is increasingly effective." However, she added, to polish the mechanisms in place and make them in tune with what the children really need, the institutions still have a long way to go. Indeed, those street children interviewed by the Weekly say they feel attempts to help them are made with ulterior motives -- however well- intentioned, such attempts are seldom suitable. "The way the social workers treat me is very nice, " said Islam. "But I don't want to live like they do. They live one way, I live another. Is that so hard for people to understand?" Perhaps this is the crux. On the one hand, street children are perfectly aware that they occupy the lowest echelons of society, so far as material comfort and safety are concerned. Nevertheless, the very fact that they once chose to leave home -- no doubt for a variety of complex reasons -- makes it unlikely that they will want to return to the folds of the mainstream. This is by no means restricted to street children, but the need to re- evaluate humanitarian methods in place is increasingly felt as the charity-based, top-down approach proves itself time and again more about the needs of the benefactor than those of the beneficiary. A good place to start would be an investigation of the pros and cons of reintegrating street children in the light of general characteristics of childhood and adolescence in Egypt. Indeed, according to UNICEF Adolescents Officer Salma Wahba, "youth in Egypt are not given enough opportunities to develop their skills or to participate in society. More often than not, basic skills such as the capacity to think critically, to develop self-esteem and to participate in decision-making are suppressed or looked down on. Young people are perceived as problems, not assets for the future." There is much to be learned from Islam in this context. "I can't accept other people making decisions for me, however well-meaning they may be. I make my own future,"Islam said. Perhaps the notion that poverty is the direct reason behind the spread of street children should be challenged. Certainly, together with weak familial ties, it is one of the main causes, but there aren't enough street children to account for the number of families living beneath poverty line in the country. As for poor family relations, many children grow up constrained by the worst of set-ups, and still manage to endure and overcome. "What we really need is more appreciation for who we are," said Islam. "I have taken responsibility for many other children, and persuaded a few of them not to do drugs. I try hard not to do anything wrong, and I never steal. I understand that others might, because we really have very little. Very often we are tired of going to the NGOs, but we still try to. The best solution would be if people actually listened to us. We have a lot to tell them about life, believe me."
