This Thursday's shy sun might find me across the town in a meeting that might mark the beginning of my return to the corporate world for a minute or two. A friend officiated her passion for children who either accompany their mothers to serve a sentence or those who are left behind when mothers are imprisoned.
I am a bit nervous but I also know that I am equipped to help her set up the communication department in her newborn non-governmental organisation and I will try to do that.
Interestingly, I am struggling financially and I also know that she cannot afford to pay me but I still want to do this. It might have a lot to do with the fact that when I was in prison I witnessed firsthand why what she is driving to change will be beneficial to a forgotten population of vulnerable lives but largely it has, even more, to do with my love of children and my understanding of there's nothing out here for this specific group of innocent souls.
...a broken system can't be responsible for handling traumatized children.
In this sovereign country of ours, we hate our children. From infant mortality rate still being a threat in a nation endowed with enough resources to lose more than two billion dollars daily to corruption to lacking proper care channels for abused, marginalised or even children in conflict with the law, there's no denying it.
The criminal justice system is rotten to the core which makes the children's act look like another bunch of passed laws collecting dust behind the desks of collective institutional bodies credited with keeping our children safe or giving them the healthy spaces required for children to be children.
...the forgotten lot.
Rehabilitation institutions of any kind hold a percentage of their share of broken families. Parents and guardians leave their kin behind when they break the law or overindulge in abusing substances.
Mainly in survival mode, the kin spills into the streets and engages in the same or worse behaviour than the absent parent or guardian. Sometimes, it is the manipulative adult in charge using the minor as bait, especially in stealing and child prostitution.
Her role now lies in making sure children remain in a more hospitable environment and that a mother doesn't have to worry about her child while serving her sentence. We are not concerned about what the adult did to end up in prison as we are about the children they were responsible for before their incarceration.
...I really have got to go, wish me luck!
wambuku w.
