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This is a brief description of the service,
please visit their web site for
more information.
Intombi Shelter ('intombi' is the Zulu word for girl), started in
1996. It provides shelter, referral and integration services to girl
children from the streets and can accommodate 15 children on beds.
Intombi children have to prove themselves capable and desirous to have a
new lifestyle, to accept discipline and attend life skills classes in
order to remain in the programme. This is a short term facility from
where children are reintegrated back home or to other facilities that will
best serve her need.
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Key Benefits to Clients
- This is a registered and acknowledged shelter but not a statutory
institution--meaning that children can walk in and receive immediate
attention to their primary problem (food, shelter, health, emotional)
with the least number of questions asked.
- This is a short term residential care centre where a client may stay
while arrangements are made to reconcile with parents, for
transportation home, for placement in a children home or other
facility.
- Even while a child is still on the streets, perhaps prostituting and
drugging, Intombi is there as a beacon of hope. Its a place they
all know about, it is the doorway out of the sub-culture...and it
remains ever inviting them in.
Key Benefits to Society
- Some runaways need a quick-fix solution to their problems. "I ran
away, now I want to go back, but I am scared and I do not know
how..." Instead of setting out on the standard social services
route that takes a few weeks and involves social workers and courts (which
cannot provide the child a place to sleep that night--except in a juvenile
detention facility) Intombi can facilitate reintegration effortlessly within
a few days at minimal cost. An average of 50 children pass by this way
every year.
- We maintain a very low standard of material comfort, and food is kept
extremely simple. No institution should ever provide better facilities
than the norm of the country because that will most definitely create a
culture of having children in institutions rather than 'slumming' at home
with family. We know that we are pioneers in implementing this way of
thinking in South Africa--and we are setting out to show the Govt and others
how they are hurting children by not following suit. One added benefit
to this is that the facility runs at a lower cost.
- Intombi serves an average of 120 children per year with full board and
lodging, social services, clothing and primary health care--at a total cost
of what just one medical doctor earns in a month.
Capabilities
- Dealing With Child Prostitution
- Few organisations can deal with children from a survival sex (or
prostitution) background. Intombi is not only good at this but
also operates amidst the sub-culture where drug lords and crooked
police run the 'hood'.
- Minimal fuss
- Intombi is so geared to operate with minimal time loss and without unnecessary
exposure of the child to stern government officials and their slow
unfriendly, probing, services. We do however understand the
place of judicial services in the social welfare process and work well
alongside and with it when needed.
- Large turnover capacity
- Intombi can increase its efficiency and turnover by 300% if it had
the resources (money and volunteers) to do so. It owns a fairly
large premises in the slum area, it has the expertise, reputation and
experience--but it lacks resources to expand its already excellent
service delivery.
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