Helping street children find a voice in Tanzania
CWS staff visit children in the safe learning environment Mkombozi offers.
Photo: CWS
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Mkombozi, a CWS partner in Tanzania, is a live-in residential center and safe haven providing housing, education, research, advocacy, and outreach for Tanzania’s street children.
Over the years Mkombozi has expanded its vision and mandate significantly by not only working with children on the street but working to end the abuse and neglect of children and advocate for children's rights and dignity. Mkombozi's mission is helping vulnerable children and youth to grow in mind, body, and spirit, while working to build a more caring society.
Mkombozi works at getting at risk children and young people (CYP) off the street to protected living situations, in its own live-in residence, foster care, or rejoining a caring family member. Mkombozi equips CYPs with knowledge, helping them to finish school, and provides life skills, income-generating skills, and changes in attitude, as the children are encouraged to become self-reliant.
Some successes: Throughout Moshi and Arusha, 72 CYP who otherwise would be on the street or in abusive/dangerous living situations, have been housed and fed. More than 100 non-resident CYP on the street have been given clothing and received life skills, family life education, and health services. In Moshi, street work outreach has encountered and provided regular care and services to more than 30 children. And in Arusha, street work outreach has been up-scaled with the hiring of two new street educators to operate a fully functional mobile school unit that has provided regular care for more than 80 children.