AFRICA/KENYA - “A chokora” is a resource to value not a social threat. Nairobi street children turn musical actors

Rome (Fides Service) - As part of initiatives to help abandoned youngsters get off the streets and prepare for better future the African Medical Research Foundation AMREF has involved a group of street children in Nairobi in a musical theatre show produced with the help of an Italian film and theatre actor, producer and playwright.
The youngsters used to sniff glue, sleep at a garbage dump and earn a meal recycling the city’s refuse, a situation shared with another 130,000 children in Nairobi alone. Hence the title of the project: Pinocchio Chokora (a chokora is a person who rummages through refuse).
After three years of performing in Nairobi the group is about to depart for a European tour starting with Italy and Holland.
The Italian actor is assisted by the head of the AMREF Kenya project who has worked for years with local communities and institutions to promote respect for children’s rights and convince people that a chokora is a resource to value not a social danger.
The twenty street-children turned actors have abandoned marijuana and glue sniffing for the stage. One of them John Kavoo, aged 19, had been living on the streets of Nairobi since he was 10. His family was very poor, his father was an alcoholic and his mother had no work and with other children of his age John survived collecting and selling tins found in the garbage as scrap iron earning on good days 20 Kenyan shillings (25 cents of a Euro). Today Kavoo has left the streets and drugs behind and is training to be a car mechanic. (AP) (30/3/2006 Agenzia Fides; Righe:25; Parole:294)