News in detail...

Re-learning the streets...March 2008

Joe Walker writes from Durban, South Africa:

"I’ve been re-learning the streets.  A street boy called Bamshee (16) was killed this week. He was stabbed to death in a flight with another boy over some glue.  Apparently I knew him, but I don’t recall his face.  He was part of the original group of children Tom Hewitt and I met in 1998. 

I’ve been disturbed and saddened by his death and the tragedy of a young life has reminded me of the urgency of the work out here. If a fight over some glue can destroy the lives of not just one but two children (the child that stabbed Bamshee faces a lengthy jail sentence), the vulnerability and trauma that children face surviving on the streets is a cataclysm that plunges children and young people into a culture of poverty, violence and sometimes death.   Bamshee’s death and countless others over the years brings home the reality of children’s lives being ripped apart by a society and a world that is yet to really wake up and take note of their struggle".