The Ndako Ya Biso Project - Our home Kinshasa newsletter - Fall 2009 Until now, the house for the street children has been a rented property in the Makala district, near the Ngaba Roundabout. It is far too small for the number of children who come to the centre and that only leads to all sorts of other problems with running the house. We wanted to find a site near the present centre to build one which would be more suitable and which would also allow us to take in girls. In November 2008 we succeeded in putting our plans into practice. We found a wellsituated, large plot (1800 square metres) near the Ngaba Roundabout and our present offices, which was exactly what we were looking for, but sadly, the community did not have the money to buy it. The SOS Children France association, which has regularly supported our work with the Street Children for many years agreed to make a special donation, thus allowing us to buy the site we wanted so much. Thanks to this generous donor, who understood the importance of this ambitious project, our plans are beginning to take practical shape. Now we have to construct the necessary buildings so that we can welcome and follow up the Street Children. With your help we want to build a new Ndako Ya Biso centre. Help us build the new Ndako Ya Biso Centre The plans include: The young boy's house (6 – 14 years) Ground floor : • a meeting room • a quiet room (frequently, children living in the street are over-tired and need a place to rest) • a kitchen, fully equipped for preparing meals for the children • a special cloakroom for the children to leave their clothes. First floor: • a meeting room for the leaders • a room for welcoming and listening to the children • a DVD room. Houses for teenage boys and for girls These houses are intended to provide space for welcoming and listening for teenage boys and for girls on the street. Dispensary - Ground floor : • An office for doctor and nurse • A treatment room • A consulting room • A storeroom for medicines The estimated cost is 195,000 euros. Together we can make this project for the Street Children a reality. A dispensary for Ndako Ya Biso is already in place There were already three small houses on the plot, all fit for demolition. In one of them, we have opened a temporary health care centre with Doctors of the World, the organisation which has supported our work with the children for the last two years. A small team of bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers and painters completely restored the house which now looks beautiful with its bright yellow facade. Our dispensary moved in there on 3rd September. Some 20 children who regularly come to the centre, were delighted to help us with the move and then put on a short play in which a street lad "stole" a mobile 'phone and was then beaten up by a group of older lads who pinched his 'phone. He was then taken to the dispensary by his friends. One of the children suitably dressed up as a doctor then attended to him! The Chief Medical Officer for the Makala area visited the centre and was very surprised to find a dispensary which was quite different from the others because it had been specially set up to care for the Street Children. He encouraged the centre's managers to continue to welcome and follow up the street girls, especially those who were pregnant and subsequently to provide them with postnatal care. The furniture for the dispensary was all made in the vocational training centre. Even if the furniture arrived late -- during the speeches -- everyone was astonished at its quality (the young apprentices had only had four months training ). The people living in the area have insisted that the dispensary should be open to them as well, as it is the only one in their district. Moses, who is aged six and is the youngest child at the centre, found the ideal place to settle down: the examination couch! Delighted to be able to lie down there, he didn't want to leave! Back to top