Street families cannot be eradicated as long as we are a strained nation

In the wake of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2015, the African giant reawakening has been on everyone’s mouth. Everyone seems to recognize that the change that Africa needs is amongst us and will not to come from westerners or elsewhere. This perception closely follows the concept of lateral thinking where the solution to a nagging problem happens to be that simple idea that one toys with every day but views it as too obvious to be a solution to anything.

In the run up to the summit and President Obama’s visit, street families in Nairobi were rounded up and taken to a secluded location. Some people lauded the County Government for getting rid of that seemingly pollutant phenomenon while others mockingly dismissed the move as just a knee jerk reaction that was bound to fall flat on its face; as it has happened before. The fact is that street families are just a symptom of a deeper problem and not a problem themselves. The core issue here is family and community disintegration that has been occasioned by civilization. We therefore definitely need a reawakening of our once unshakable kinship bonds.

In traditional African societies, kinship ties were so tight that children often thought that everyone around them was their relative. Every man or woman their parents’ age was uncle or auntie respectively; every senior member of the community was grandpa or grandma.

In such a society children belonged to everyone. Indeed it was the norm for any grown up to spank a kid who they found misbehaving along the way and later report them to their parents for another thorough beating. It was also not very odd for a child to have a meal in their neighbour’s house. This notably noble way of life was so obvious that no one ever noted the magnitude of the tragedy it prevented and further no one seems to recognize that it’s the ultimate solution to the increasing tragedy of vulnerable and destitute of children. Then, such children were quickly absorbed into the extended family or community.

Today, families and communities that were previously closely knit have all over sudden found themselves scattered over distant urban areas where social interactions and support systems have been greatly hampered. To this end, the ecological model of child care has been completely disrupted. In this model, the needs of the child are convincingly taken care of in the context of three concentric interactive levels.

The parent(s) represent the first level, the immediate family and community members the second while sound socioeconomic policies and practices represent the third. Needs of the child are only effectively taken care of if these three levels are interacting seamlessly. Civilization has directly interfered with interaction of the first two levels, consequently necessitating a different approach at the third level. It’s therefore apparent that the concept of kinship ties must be redefined in tandem with the modern way of life or face extinction much to the detriment of traditional child care and protection systems.

Whereas civilization can be cited as the primary cause of the problem, it has also provided us with a “civilized solution” as well. Social media. In the recent past, thriving communities have been formed on social media platforms such as facebook and whatsapp. Most of these communities are knitted around common areas of interest such as family members, workmates, church mates and professional bodies amongst others. Whatsapp and facebook groups have been effectively used to mobilize friends and relatives in times of crises like death. The downside is that such groups soon disintegrate only to be reconstituted later on when need arises and evidently under different names and purpose. As such, these groups have only been viewed as platforms for mobilization and not a means of continuous social interactions amongst their members as was the case when geographic barriers were not there.

What if every extended family was to have an official facebook or whatsapp group where they interacted on a day to day basis? What if every community, be it based on its rural origins or otherwise, was to have such a page too? Couple these with mobile money transfer and distance suddenly becomes a non-issue. In essence then, the digital era has completely eradicated the excuse of geographical barriers to kinship ties and we are left with our mindset as the only real hindrance. Evidently, we do not have any excuse whatsoever for not reawakening the African giant that’s traditional kinship ties. Definitely not!