homeless youth

This morning I visited one of our local ministry partners here in Maputo, Mozambique. It’s a drop in center for street children. A place they can come for meals, safety, small-business training and assistance reintegrating with their families and communities. The center is open only during business hours; it’s not an overnight shelter. There are literacy and mathematics classes during the day, along with staff that hang out and befriend the children, providing guidance and advice upon need. Hygiene kits are provided, donated clothing, assistance finding shelter for the night. The center began through a local church congregation ministry and has turned into a self-sustaining non-profit organization. The vision of those who began the center is alive and ministering years later in their home city. Our organization partners with the center in providing financial and project support. We met this morning to discuss starting a chicken-rearing project and possibly a pilot site for a new urban farming project.

As I toured the center, met some of the kids and spoke with the staff, I was reminded of our homeless youth programs at home. They are set up in the very same way. What struck me is the needs of these “street kids” are the same as the needs of our “homeless youth” in the states. Names change to account for being politically correct, but the needs are the same. Children run from broken homes, get into trouble with drugs or the wrong group of friends, and end finding themselves struggling to survive on their own long before they should have to. Sometimes the broken homes can be mended, sometimes the best option is to pull out and start over. If the later happens, these children need skills to survive and a support system to call home. Centers such as this one exist for that purpose. As they do in Minneapolis, Brainerd and Duluth.

I am thousands of miles from my home today; and yet I feel as if I am back in the office at LSS hearing of immediate needs and thinking of ways to best address them with very little resources. Whether we refer to them as street kids in Africa or homeless youth in our urban cities in the US, their needs are the same. We all need a place to call home.