February 2011 zimpeto Child Reintegration Program Update

"The reintegration process has evolved over the 6 years since it was first begun. Our team is now well respected by other children's centres and by social welfare as having the capacity and funds to properly investigate each new child who comes to us and each child who is reintegrated.

"The team remains the same 3 women who now function more as a social welfare team than on having reintegration as their focus. We realize that reintegration begins with the admission process, therefore the team conducts home visits on all new admissions to the children's centre prior to them being accepted.

"The car which was bought by IMC over 5 years ago is crucial to the success of the program. It is well maintained and driven by the driver specific for reintegration and is an awesome blessing to this project. We could not do the work without it.

"In the year of 2010 the team went on more than 550 home visits, and these were only the documented visits of visits that required a report written! Hundreds of other interviews were done as well as home visits that that did not meet the criteria for admission.

"The team work hard to gather correct documentation on
•    the family address,  
•    address of extended family,
•    the correct family history and reason for admission to the centre
•    the correct name and birth-date of the child,
•    registering the child legally with a birth certificate.

"In 2010 the team reintegrated over 45 children to 14 different suburbs of Maputo, and accepted over 50 new children from 20 different suburbs.

"We were able to build a basic block house of one or two bedrooms and one sitting room for over 12 families. This enabled families to be reunited, and in two cases, keeps the children in the home, rather than having to send them to live in the children's centre.

"While reintegration with family members is successful most of the time, occasionally an alternative needs to found for the child or youth. Youth are normally the most challenging to reintegrate with family due to their age and independence. With this understanding, we have primarily targeted the younger age group for reintegration, and it has proven to be a smoother transition."

[One of our youth who was reintegrated with his family, along with two of the  reintegration staff]

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Below is the story of one of our recent reintegrations:

"I looked up his visit notes and saw that since entering the centre some 12 years earlier he had not found his family. On enquiring, I found him to be a clean, dependable young man who caused no problems and was in fact a leader in one of the dormitories. I spoke to a missionary who knew him well and who confirmed him to be of good character, but shared that he carried a very large heart wound in that he had lost his family.

"On further investigation I found that our team had visited the house where he had last lived at the age of seven, but that the family no longer lived there. They did find a woman who knew of the family and thought she knew where the father worked. We made some attempts to find him but never actually located him.

"In November of 2009 we again began to look for the father and found a crippled man who had once worked in a bakery, but had been in an accident and has lost his memory. He lived in the same zone and had the same surname. We found the woman who knew of Pedro’s father and took her to meet this man to confirm that he was Pedro’s father. She denied that he was the father.

"In February of 2010, now more than 10 years since Pedro had come to the centre, and over 12 years since he had last seen his family, our reintegration team found a lead of where his family might be. They followed this lead and did in fact find the fathers side of Pedro’s family.

"During the investigation Pedro was not updated as to what we were doing. We surprised him by having his father brought to him along with some other relatives. Pedro’s older sister who was now 23 and her new baby were two of those who came along. We called Pedro to the reintegration room.

"On walking in he embraced them one at a time in silence. His sister, Aunty and cousin all cried.  He embraced his father for a long time and then his sister with eyes closed. The women were speechless and wept.

"After some time, Pedro sat down and we began to talk. The reintegration team asked him who he remembered. He took a very long time but then said that he remembered his sister. It was as if he was apprehensive to recall her name. He stared for a long time at the ceiling as if he just could not dare to hope this was his family. His father took out a photo of himself years back. The team again asked Pedro who he remembered. He pointed to the photo of his father and said ‘this is my father’. They said ‘this man in the photo is the man sitting here in front of you’.

"His father still had the Pedro’s birth certificate. The family then shared with him that his younger brother had died in 2005. This affected Pedro deeply and he left the room to sit at the back of the prayer room. The reintegration team followed him and talked with him for 10 minutes, during which time he cried and thought a lot.

"I asked the family why he had left the house. Pedro was maltreated by his step mother and that is why he left the house. The sister also left some time later.

"I asked the father what he thought when he first saw Pedro.  He told us that when he walked in the room, he knew Pedro was his son, and that even though he had grown up and was now a man, he was so much the same.

"God’s faithfulness was touched once again.

"This highlights the importance of the reintegration team, to gather correct information on families prior to the children coming in. Whether they are street children, poor children or unwanted children, they need to know where they come from, so that they can know where they are going."