May Day, May Day!
SOS Children’s Village cries for help 63 trafficked children kept at SOS from 2015 to 2020
Some 63 trafficked children of different nationalities from all over Africa were kept at SOS Village in Tlokweng from 2015 to 2020.
The National Director of SOS Children’s Village Motshwari Kitso told Botswana Guardian in an interview last week after a charity donation to the SOS Village by the Chinese Charity Care Centre, that most of these children were caught at the border posts.
Kitso explained that while authorities were searching for these children’s countries of origin and making plans to repatriate them, the SOS Village provided refuge for them under the short term programme that the centre has introduced.
In his welcome remarks, Kitso explained that Tlokweng is the first SOS Children’s Village in Botswana having been established in 1985. He said the role of the SOS Village is to look out for children who have fallen through the cracks of society and in need of alternative placement.
He said they take them on the road from childhood and safe passage to adulthood ensuring that they go through all the different developmental stages, are given all the requisites to transit from one stage to the other so that they are independent and self supporting.
SOS Village takes children from all over the country and over the years from 1985 the Village has graduated a total of 695 graduates from its three programmes who are living independently within the society.
All children enrolled at the SOS Village are brought in by social workers who have to
obtain a court order once the child is declared a child in need of care. In 2015 the SOC Village started a programme of de- institutionalising the SOS care whereby they integrate their own SOS families in the community.
Kisto said they have been piloting this programme and so far they have eight families in the community who are living among the community without their home being branded as SOS, and they are just part of the larger society.
Their research has shown them that children miss some elements and benefits when they grow up in an institutional setting hence they decided to de- institutionalise.
Kitso said that the families they have integrated in the community exhibit high confidence levels and that their academic performance has significantly improved.
“We would like them to be part of the larger society hence the strategic direction of the SOS is to integrate children into the society as a transit into the bigger foster care programme that we want to do as a country”.
He reiterated that SOS is not coming to an end but is transforming itself to move along with the modern times.
Kitso explained that Covid- 19 has hit them hard – they were forced to innovate and change the way they’ve been doing things.
“When we did our response and mitigation plan, we had to shut out people from our villages so that we confine our children to our villages and also to take all the precautions as stipulated by the Ministry of Health”.
Infact the SOS is still restricting access of the
outside community into the Village for the time being. Kitso explained that sponsorship and fundraising have drastically dropped by 60 percent at the SOS because most sponsors are also affected by Covid- 19.
He said that in 2020 they were supposed to raise 60 percent of their funding locally and 40 percent from abroad but that the 60 percent was “impossible” and they could only manage 30 percent.
Another challenge that Kitso made to Minister of Transport and Communication, Thulaganyo Segokgo, who attended in his capacity as Member of Parliament for Tlokweng, is that it’s hard for them to get land for children that graduate from the Village and have to be integrated into the community.
“Mind you some of these children came here as totally abandoned children who don’t have anyone, even the names and surnames we had to give them.
“When they graduate from our care we have to ensure that they go somewhere, this is a difficult thing for us to advocate and lobby for the plots for these children”.
He pl eaded with Segokgo to ask his counterpart, the Minister of Lands to be sympathetic “to our cause” saying this is not an easy process.
The event was graced by Chinese Ambassador to Botswana, Wang Xuefeng, Assisatnt Minister of Basic Education Nnaniki Wellemin Makwinja, former Ambassador of Botswana to China, Sasara George and Miles Nan the Chairman of Charity Association of Chinese in Botswana ( CACB).
In a later interview with Kitso he explained that the House will still continue to be in use for other programmes as they integrate children from the Village into the community.
“It’s not like the SOS Village will remain idle”. He said the good thing was also that if the SOS Village has vacant houses, they can be rented out to generate income – so this is the approach that we are taking”, Kitso said. He said that the government of Botswana wants to implement foster care programme, but it has proven difficult to start it.
That is when they approach government and sold them the idea that they could use their resources for the foster care programme.
Some of the SOS Village’s resources include trained Mothers and Caregivers that can be used in the foster care programme.
“We start with these children – they go out to live in the community- as they graduate, the new ones will be enrolled straight into the community – there won’t be need for them to be cared for here at the SOS Village first”.
In this way Kitso believes that they will be in a position to fully implement the foster care programme. “Integration is the basis for the foster care programme,” Kisto summed it.
The three SOS Villages in the country – Tlokweng, Serowe and Francistown – hosts 400 children in total. However, Kitso said their outreach programme for children that are cared for at homes known as ‘ Family Strengthening’ has 1500 children. If there is a caregiver that can be capacitated with the requisite life skills to look after children identified as in need, such children are not enrolled at the SOS Village.
Instead, Kitso said the caregiver is enrolled in the income generating progranme so that he/ she can sustain the family in the community. The children in the outreach programme are responsible for the high costs of running the SOS Villages. Further, Kitso explained that their care is individualised according to the needs of the child, it is not a one size fits all.
“We do child development planning, we look at the needs of each and every child, there is also an individualised career path and development path for every child. “Even those children with learning difficulties have their own development path and it is more expensive than for any other normal child”. The SOS Villages boasts professional staff that includes social workers, educators and psychologists as well as Mothers also known as Caregivers, who stay with the children.