Cape Town, South Africa

“A place for us!” was the delighted response of Cape Town’s invisible street children, the girls, when Ons Plek (Our Place) project opened for them in 1988. Ons Plek is the only intake shelter just for girls in Cape Town. The girls’ basic needs of food, clothing, shelter, education and love are provided. Once the children have crossed the threshold into Ons Plek they are not here as street children, but as children who are looking for a new place in society. They are not looking for an identity as former street children either, but want to be seen as ordinary children. For them Ons Plek is not a project for female street children, but a place, OUR PLACE, where ‘sifunda ukuphila’ - we learn for our future lives.

Each year around 150 girls between the ages of six and 18 leave home to fend for themselves on the streets of Cape Town. The girls usually have left their homes to escape physical abuse and neglect, or they have been sent away when their families can no longer support them. The girls report that they eat better on the streets than they do at home. These female street children are the poorest of the poor. The girls are a minority group on the street--an average of 12 percent of street children are girls. They have the lowest status at home and on the street.

To these girls Ons Plek provides accessible early intervention and intake 24 hours a day. Girls are referred to Ons Plek shortly after arrival to the Cape Town Central Business District. Ons Plek provides the girls with a safe environment and shelter, while providing appropriate programs for the girls based on an assessment of each girl’s circumstances.

The work of the three main facilities is all interlinked. The three programs integrate to form a whole. Ons Plek’s levels of care included the intake shelter doing comprehensive assessment and development care, Siviwe, a second-phase shelter focusing on therapy and development, and Ukondla, a community project with the goal of keeping girls in with their families and prevent their move to the streets. Ukondla focuses on homework help realizing that girls often drop out of school as a precursor to “dropping out of home.”

Family reunification is one of the primary goals of Ons Plek, unless the circumstances make it inappropriate. It may take months or even years to make a home placement work. Initially, while girls adjust to a structured environment, Ons Plek social work and childcare staff interview families and investigate home circumstances. They assist families in carrying out their responsibilities to their children and may hold family meetings and family building sessions with the families. On average, about half of the girls go home each year, some returning to the home they left after counseling and discussion and with the support of Ons Plek. Others are placed into homes with other family members or appropriate foster families.

Girls in the Ons Plek program gain a sense of responsibility through making household decisions and rules together with staff as well as participating in household duties, such as cooking, nutrition, and budgeting. This contributes to a healthy self-image and feeling of belonging which are both crucial to girls’ willingness to engage in problem solving with their families and/or communities.