Yesterday we visited Humanite Nouvelle - a relatively small organisation working with street children. They mainly work with boys living on the street - often as a result of breakdown in the family, but they also work with some girls (identified by the church as being extremely vulnerable to prostitution). The girls are given training in sewing so that they can set themselves up in business. We all had shirts made (see photo) and now look like an African barbershop quartet!).
The work with the boys is painstakingly slow - they are often hardened by being on the streets for a long time, or from being abused by their family (sometimes because they're accused of being possessed). Emile, the programme manager for HUNO, is an inspirational man (see man crouching in photo) who works with each boy over several days drawing a family tree (genogramme) in order to establish who he should approach to try to find the boy a family member to live with. Over the last few months Emile has reconciled 4 families. Not a huge number I know - but priceless.
Daniel
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