Children have rights too

SHELDON WEEKS
Correspondent | Friday January 28, 2011 00:00

It is housed on a second floor balcony in the old church where the Albert Street School for Refugee Children is located.  Five hundred vulnerable refugee children now attend school there, of whom 200 are orphans.  It all began in 2008 when xenophobia peaked in South Africa.  The CMC has become a 'social cosmos' for over 2,000 refugees.  It provides shelter, education, retraining, food, legal advice and medical aid.  The school goes from prep through Standard Six.  There is also a creche.

The permanent exhibit has the support of GTZ, SADC's Peace, Security and Governance Programme, CMM and the Solidarity Peace Trust (SPT).  Our guide there was Father Mike of the SPT.  The original exhibit designed by Goetz Berger, Andreas Gessner and Godfrey Maguma for Trinity Anglican Church that opened first in Gaborone was much larger and also focused on violations of human rights faced by Zimbabweans.

The Central Methodist Church says of the permanent exhibit that it is 'a tool for coping with trauma and regaining self-esteem'.  It provides a venue through which the refugee children can tell their story to other interested people, including others in the local community and visitors from outside.  In the Baobab Tree there are recordings that can be listened to by visitors.  The Children's Voices, is based on the life stories of Zimbabwean children who have fled from their homes due to the socio-political and economic crisis that Zimbabwe has been facing for many years.

The exhibit opened in Gaborone at Trinity Anglican Church as part of International Human Rights Day, observed worldwide on the 10th of December 2009.  DITSHWANELO - The Botswana Centre for Human Rights, serving as the Secretariat for Botswana Civil Society Solidarity Coalition for Zimbabwe (BOCISCOZ - a coalition of dozens of organisation in Botswana) presented it at the Trinity Church Hall.  The Children's Voices was also timed to be part of the 16 Days of Activism on Violence Against Women and Children.

It was anticipated that the children, whose stories are the basis of the exhibition, would be in attendance on Thursday December 10 2009 and perform a play about their experiences.  Unfortunately they were not able to leave Johannesburg. On Monday December 7th 2009, the majority of 200 children living at the Central Methodist Church and attending the nearby Albert Street School for Refugee Children, went into hiding rather than be relocated to camps elsewhere in South Africa.  They were eventually able to return to their church and school rather than be forced into other shelters.

DITSHWANELO said of the exhibition, 'We noted that in media reports, questions of torture and displacement have typically concerned men and women.  The voices of the children of Zimbabwe were silent.  Where were those children who had left the country due to the crisis?  How were they living in their new homes?  This exhibition shares the stories of those children who were forced to flee their original homes in Zimbabwe.  It provides us with a children's perspective of the socio-political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe'.  One of the unique features of the exhibition was the recorded voices of the refugee children that could be listened to at various points from earphones suspended from the various structures of the exhibition.

Minister of Education and Skills Development when first opening the exhibition commented to the effect that: 'We do not consider you to be busybodies, but recognise that you are doing your work. 

Ditshwanelo and Civil Society are not being seen as rivals or anti-government and that the government appreciated what Ditshwanelo and civil society were doing.  This was because our neighbours' problems are our problems.  When our neighbours are not at peace, we are not at peace.  Their troubles spill over and impact on us.'

If you missed the exhibit you can still see it at 48 Albert Street.  Call Bishop Verryn on (0) 11-333-5926 or Fr Mike on (0) 7208-27928. It is normally open only during office hours Monday to Friday.