Patricia and the four boys. All will be partners in the new Otjiwarongo Bicycle Empowerment Centre.
Five years ago, this group would have been a bunch of labels.
“Addicts”
“Thieves”
“Delinquents”
Thrown to the streets, this group – like many other young people in Namibia, were surviving the best, the only way they could.
Known as a group called: “Orphans & Vulnerable Children (OVC)” these teenagers are part of a growing number of youth who have lost either one or both parents, in a large part due to the impact of HIV/AIDS. The following statistics illustrate the magnitude of HIV:
- Around one in every 5 Namibian adults are HIV positive.
- An estimated one in every 3 Namibians under the age of 18 will be orphaned by the end of the decade.
- Namibia is one of the top 5 countries hardest hit by HIV.
As shocking as these statistics are, they fail to capture the impact of the pandemic on the lives of children.
For these five, who were living on the streets of Otjiwarongo, hunger was a regular visitor. They slept under bridges, dropped out of school, turned to crime as a way of earning income and resorted to violence as a way of protection.
The same time five years ago, Mrs. Muriel Fitch arrived in Otjiwarongo. A grandmother of 16, Mrs. Fitch was in town to help her daughter through a difficult pregnancy.
With a big laugh and a contagious energy, it wasn’t long before Otjiwarongo noticed the visitor and decided to keep her. Offering her a job to help run an after-school soup kitchen for children, Mrs. Fitch accepted.
In the weeks that followed, the after-school program ran out of money, the existing staff fled and, a month on the job, Mrs. Fitch was left with a huge group of hungry children – many of them street kids who would get their only meal of the day from the after-school program.
There are few people who can rise to challenges like this. Mrs. Fitch readily admits that she quit three times, after trying to run various versions of the program.
Then, three years ago, she decided – with the help of a few small overseas grants, to run a program for the street children of Otjiwarongo.
A home with food, beds and life-skills training was opened. The Joy Centre, as it would be known, offered young people a chance to start over. It became a place of hope for those who had endured the tragedy of loosing a parent, who had been stigmatized by society, struggled without support systems and lived on the margins.
But reformation didn’t come easy. Mrs. Fitch remembers her kids – the Joy Centre kids – stealing from shops, carrying knives and getting drunk or high on a regular basis.
It took time, love and discipline to turn things around. But today, the Joy Centre is a highly-regarded oasis. For this group, – Patricia, the 2 Sylvesters, David and Hans – the first five who came to the Joy Centre, a new opportunity has presented itself.
A container full of donated second-hand bicycles from Thunder Bay’s Bicycles for Humanity has been dropped off and is being transformed into the town’s only bicycle workshop. Donated bicycles will be repaired, refurbished, sold. Money that is generated will:
- Support the Joy Centre’s activities
- Help the organisation expand
- Pay the wages of the five partners
- Help purchase necessary supplies to keep the business sustainable.
With mechanical and business training already complete, the five are no longer facing the labels they once endured. Instead, they are redefining themselves as young businessmen and women, as mechanics and as valuable members of the community who have something to offer.
