Background
Tanzania has been facing the challenge of vulnerable children and has become an alarmingly common sight in cities around the world. Tanzania began to see the problem of vulnerable children in difficult circumstances in the late 1980s. At the same time Convection Rights of Children (1990) came into force. Kind Heart Africa was founded in line with these Conventions. There are now some 3000-5000 street children in Dar es Salaam. The Founders of Kind Heart Africa Centre believe that all children fundamentally have the right to a happy, healthy, and safe childhood.
Global and National Development Policies disenfranchised the poor, spawning instead years of poverty alleviation strategies that have not touched the rural farmer, who represents 80% of Tanzania’s population. Their children began migrating in the thousands to all the towns in the Country. Some families are unemployed or are involved in unreliable income-earning activities. These parents can not afford to send their children to school, or they do not send them because they need their services at home. Also, many children run away from their homes because they have been victims of violence and abuse, by-products of crushing poverty. Street life violates the dignity of the children and negatively affects their physical, mental, emotional, moral, and overall well-being. Full-time street children experience great difficulties in their daily life, including hunger, lack of shelter, sickness, and police harassment. In these harsh conditions, the children use drugs, get involved in criminal activities, and engage in prostitution. “Survival sex” with adults provides the children with food and shelter. Unprotected sex leads down the road to HIV/AIDS and certain death
