Out on the Streets

My second week has been spent working on the ambulance/mobile health clinic. As well as having a paramedic there are also a couple of outreach workers on board. The team drive around the streets looking for children who need medical help, identifying children who are new on the streets, connecting with the children they already have a relationship with in order to try and get them off the streets and generally offering support and advice.

Nothing can really prepare you for your first trip out on to the streets and your first encounter with a group of children that you find. It is every bit as heartbreaking as you would expect it to be and so much worse.
Children as young as 10 years old, dressed in whatever clothes they can find, some sniffing glue to escape the reality of street life. They of course all greet you with a smile but the look in their eyes tells a different story. You could just weep for these kids. But what good would that do? All you can do is be with them, listen to them and show them you care.

Some of the kids try hard to keep themselves clean, showering wherever they can and using old brooms to brush their hair.

The stories the team tell me about what has led some of these kids to live on the street can only be described as horrific. These kids therefore arrive on the streets traumatised only to descend into further misery, subjected to things which no child should ever have to experience.
As you stand in front of them looking at their situation you just cannot believe that it is real and nor can you believe the number of people walking on past as if they don't exist.

'The world isn't bad because of evil
people but because of all the good
people doing nothing'

I have however seen a small number of people dropping off food bags as they pass and there are organisations in the city who donate food, clothes etc.

Some of the wounds and sores these children have are dreadful and yet they barley complain, attending the mobile clinic looking only for an elastoplast. The wound care which I am able to give them is not great however due to lack of resources. Many of the wounds which I am seeing need proper hospital treatment and antibiotics yet most of the kids just do not want to attend hospital.

I managed to persuade one young boy to attend the hospital with a horrendous burn to his leg. However within 5 minutes of arriving at the emergency department he was nowhere to be found. This may have been due to the complete lack of care and compassion which he received from the hopsital staff, which may also explain the reluctance of the other children to attend.

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