Location and general information
Access to Sport - 
Personal developmentContext
Over 5,000 children live in the streets of Bujumbura, including girls under the age of 15, physically and/or mentally disabled children and children with minority backgrounds who are all the more vulnerable because of their ethnic origin. There is only a very limited number of shelters for these children, which deprives them of a secure social environment with recreational activities. Bujumbura only has three shelters, run by GIRIYUJA ASBL, through which more than 3,000 street children pass each year.
Project content
The project will help street children to reintegrate into their communities through socio-educational activities featuring sport in general and football in particular, along with personalised support for individual children. The activities will enable these vulnerable children to develop their self-esteem and their trust in others. They will also be helped to develop plans for their future.
Objectives
- Raise awareness of street children among the local community
- Help street children to develop life projects so that they can reintegrate into their communities
- Strengthen street children’s self-protection skills, psychosocial resilience and well-being through sport
Project activities
- Organising tournaments for street children and others to strengthen social cohesion
- Organising socio-educational activities based on sport and football in particular
- Providing individual support so that the children can develop plans to help them get off the streets
- Tracing street children’s families to encourage reunification
- Providing a framework to enable the children to re-enter the school system
- Creating an environment that encourages exchanges between the organisers and other child protection stakeholders to strengthen their working relationship
- Referring children with specific needs to competent local partners
Expected results
- Roughly 600 street children are provided with a socio-educational framework at the Football for Hope centre in Kabondo and the other centres in Buterere and Kanyosha, so that they can develop their self-protection skills
- Roughly 180 street children are reintegrated into the community thanks to individual support and follow-up
- Four meetings to strengthen the working relationship between the various child protection organisations to help provide the children with a safe environment
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Partner
