Tsholofelong Recovery Program for Street Children

Botswana

Botswana Council of Churches
Gaborone, Botswana

The Botswana Council of Churches is a longstanding partner of Global Ministries.  It was founded in 1966 and has 36 member churches and organizations. Botswana is located in southern Africa. The land has rolling hills but is predominantly flat with the Okavango Delta and Kalahari Desert. The country has periodic droughts, seasonal winds, and limited fresh water resources. 

The Tsholofelong Recovery Program for Street Children of the Botswana Council of Churches formally came into existence in 1993 in Old Naledi, one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana.  It was established because of concern about the situation of children who live, eat, sleep, and, unfortunately, die on the streets of Gaborone.  The program adopted an action oriented approach aimed at safeguarding the children from the violence and poverty of the streets and making their lives worth living by giving them love, education, and a future.  To date the program has assisted many children ranging in age from six to 22 years of age, and the numbers of children needing to be assisted have consistently grown because of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Botswana has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world, and it is one of the countries which has been most impacted by HIV/AIDS.  It is estimated that at least 25 percent of the adult population is HIV positive.  The impact on society has been devastating, and this is especially true for many children.  There are more and more children left behind without proper social structures.  As the extended family support systems become overburdened and often collapse, the children infected and/or affected by HIV/AIDS are increasingly growing up in circumstances prone to malnutrition, deprivation, teenage pregnancy, juvenile delinquency, suicide attempts, substance abuse, and crime. 

Many of the children in the Tsholofelong Program have been left to drift aimlessly in the urban areas without supervision and, consequently, they have acquired “street life.”  By focusing on helping children to fulfill all their potential (physical, psycho-social, and intellectual) and applying an interactive and dynamic mode of education that allows youth and children to participate in their own learning the objectives Tsholofelong Program are as follows:

• To remove the children from the street
• To rehabilitate the children
• To provide the children with education and training
• To re-integrate the children in the mainstream family and social life

• To improve the physical and psycho-social development of disadvantaged children living on the street
• To reduce the multiple risks associated with children living and working on the street

Currently the program is assisting 60 children.  However, the number of children needing assistance is much greater, and efforts are being made to increase the funding so that the program can benefit even more children.  Tsholofeleng is strongly supported by the local community, and they are seeking help from outside to bolster and complement what they are doing. 

Gifts of all sizes are greatly appreciated:

• $25 will assist in buying school supplies for a child
• $200 will assist in helping to adequately feed a child for a year
• $1,000 will assist in equipping the facilities for skills training
• $5,000 and more will help the program to expand to meet the needs of even more children