Safina – The ark for street children in Dodoma.

It was unusually quiet in the car when we left the city of Dodoma after two days. All of us were still thinking about Andrea Hellermann, who has been running her project for street children in Dodoma for eight years and gave us a brief but profound insight into her work.

Safina (the Ark) is now diverse in its activities, which revolve around caring for homeless and single minors. Every morning at Safina starts with a warm cup of tea for all those children who have slept on the streets at night and arrive hungover at 6:00 in the morning. Andrea and her helpers use these moments to talk to the children and young people, understand their problems and gently build a relationship with them. Over time, a clear picture emerges from the conversations about their family structures and the problems the protégés are struggling with. Further help, if it is accepted by the children and young people, is varied and always improvised. For example, family relationships are stabilized, relatives are made responsible or shared flats are initiated with former street children. Another option is the hostel in our own orphanage on the outskirts of Dodoma, away from the children’s previous environment. Around 50 children and young people live here in two buildings with Andrea and friends who support them.

In addition to the morning tea, there are two other ways in which Safina makes contact with street children. One is the weekly food distribution on the street. This involves putting together 20-30 small food parcels and distributing them on the streets of Dodoma every Friday evening. Just as well-known and welcome as she is on the streets, Andrea is also welcomed at the Dodoma garbage dump, where homeless people spend the whole day sorting garbage and sleeping in small shacks, even raising their children there. As warm as the contact with these people was, these were very touching moments for us and our children, which still have an effect today. Helping here is a Herculean task that saps your strength and, given the size of the challenge, is always a struggle between resignation and hope.
Thank you so much for your overwhelming work, Andrea. For your charity.

Schulbank joined forces with Safina in 2015 and has so far supported little Jospeter with a place in kindergarten. We at Schulbank hope that we will soon be able to support Andrea and her street children on a much larger scale.