|
Our Short History
In 1996 and 1997 God brought together a small group of people from different churches, who in one way or another had encounters with street children. They asked themselves: what does Jesus want us to do them? In 1997 they organized a Christmas celebration and 14 young people gave their lives to Jesus. That was the beginning of meeting with them every Saturday afternoon at the sports ground of Upanga Primary School in Dar es Salaam. Within a year the group grow up to more than 100 street children and homeless youth. As we know, any child needs a parental care so we tried to send them back to their homes. After several failures the idea of opening a Foster Family Home emerged. We decided to a Foster Family Home because from the beginning we saw their need of parental care, role models of good fathers and mothers and a place they could call home. We discovered that many of them were on the streets because they lost family and home because of their parents getting divorced, conflicts with step parents, rejection by parents and lack of help and care after the death of parents by their relatives. In the same way poverty, alcohol addiction, witchcraft, abuse and child labour has caused many children to run away from home. In 1998 we opened our first Foster Home and we continued to meet with those still living on the streets three times a week for counselling, medical care and teaching. In 2002 we opened our first Drop-In Center at Shaaban Robert Street, Dar Es Salaam and also got officially registered as Safina Street Network. In 2004 we opened our first branch in Dodoma. Our aim was to be close by and assist children, who returned to their families and to make sure they would continue with school together with providing counselling and support to their parents and relatives. Up to this day our branch in Dodoma supports over 100 children in this way. In 2007 and 2009 we also opened branches in Singida and Iringa for the same reason. Our branches also help to reach children at an early stage before they get used to street life or decide to go to Dar es Salaam. Today Safina takes care of 73 children and youth in 8 Foster Family Homes as well as over 192 children and youth, who returned to live with their own relatives. All of these children are in school starting with kindergarten until college. Our aim is to help each one to stand on her or his own feet and to mature physically, emotionally and spiritually into a responsible young person. Up to this day Safina workers reach out to those still living on the streets aiming to build friendships and help them to reach a point of decision to leave the streets. In 2016 Safina was able to buy land in Morogoro in order to build a Vocational Training and Adult Education Center. This centre shall help young people who are too old to return to the normal public schools or who dropped out of various reasons. We thank God for his goodness and who enabled us from the beginning up to this day. To HIM we give glory and honor. |
Our Vission |
|
To provide holistic care to any child living and working on the streets of Tanzania.
|
Our Mission |
|
To see the lives of children living and working on the streets and those in vulnerable and abusive life circumstances being redeemed, restored and transformed through holistic care such as shelter, food, medical treatment, counselling, education and family reunification.
|
| safina_street_network_-_english_presentation_3.pdf |