Unreported World

Saving Kenya's Street Kids (2013x2)

Air date: Apr 19, 2013

Aidan Hartley reports from his home town in Kenya on an extraordinary project to rescue the children who live on its streets. Together with director Wael Dabbous, Hartley highlights the inspiring work of the Restart Centre in Gilgil, which is providing a safe shelter for children at risk. The Centre is run on a shoestring budget raised from private donations. Conditions are basic, but crucially, it represents safety for the 70 children who live there. Many of them ended up living rough as result of the bloody chaos which engulfed Kenya following disputed elections five years ago. More than a thousand people were killed, many families were broken up and thousands were made homeless. Hartley and Dabbous follow Restart worker Dan Nderitu, who spends his nights seeking out Gilgil's street children. The first time they meet him, he's in a race against time to rescue two small boys: Ken, seven, and his ten-year-old brother Julius. Ken and Julius' family have sunk into extreme poverty. Their mother abandoned them and a year ago they began sleeping rough. They both want to move off the streets and into the Restart shelter, but in order to take them in, Dan needs the government's permission. He's trying to reach the government Children's Officer who needs to sign the paperwork for Ken and Julius - but her office is chronically underfunded and the process painfully slow. Dan's work is urgent because, during Unreported World's time in Kenya, the country is about to hold general elections, and if there's violence, he fears the children could be even more at risk. Unreported World also films the Restart Centre's children's choir which campaigns for the elections to be peaceful. Many of those Hartley meets, such as Pilot, the youngest member of the choir, saw their families collapse in the violence following the previous election.