Yom Mil
8 years old
'Yom is a Dinka. A tribe from the southern part of Sudan. Yom's mother went away when he was about five years old. She never came back. She died on the way, but Yom does not know that. In his head she is still travelling. His father remarries, but Yon didn't fit in there. That is why he took to living on the streets.
He is the best finder of excuses around. He's able to talk his way out of anything. Once he didn't want to go to school, and as a reason he gave that the hairdresser had cut his hair shorter on one side than on the other. But he is one of the sweetest streetchildren I know.'
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James Deng
12 years old
'James draws about life on the street. You can see a boy looking for someting to eat in a garbage can, whil sniffing glue at the same time. A lot of Sudanese streetchildren are addicted to sniffing glue. Sometimes the children are so stoned that they walk out into the street and get run aver by a car. Strange enough, this is one of the main causes of death for many streetchildren. You can also see that happening in James' picture.'
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Hassan Badaui
14 years old
'Hassan is one of the most special boys that I have ever met. He has an enormous amount of talent and feeling. You can see that in his paintings and drawings. I am not afraid to say that this boy could one day be of the stature of Nelson Mandela for Sudan.
I met Hassan the first time in the camp 'Abudom'. He was only nine years old at the time. I noticed that he always looked neat and tidy. (As far as that is possible in a camp). He was the ultimate pleaser, but also very sweet and intelligent.
Once he came with me to a forum about sniffing glue. Many people in Sudan do not know about the fact that there are reformcamps for children out in the desert. When they started talking about streetchildren, someone stood up and said:"why don't we put these children in a camp and re-train them. Hassan listened to this and stood up. First he was ignored between 300 grown-ups. When he finally got the microphone he said:"I am a streetchild. And I don't think it is a good idea to put children in camps, because they treat us as animals". Everybody fell silent, and them stood up to applaude.
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When he was only four years old he ran away from home and started to work. Doing chores. Earning a little bit of money. During those day he learned to 'please people': doing what grown-ups want. He knew very fast that you come the furthest in that way and you can stay out of trouble.
When Hassan came to live with me in my house - I had about seven streetchildren living with me at that time - he also turned out to be very calculating and not not always very easygoing. Living on the streets he had figured out ways to get the most out of anything, sometimes at the cost of others. During those days he started to see that about himself as well, and he changed a lot in that time.
Hassan is very intelligent and full of initiatives. He also stood up for me when I was sent out of the country. He even wrote a letter to the president of Sudan.' |
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