From the Frontline: Kate McAlpine

Kate McAlpine, 36, has lived in Tanzania for 15 years. Now fluent in Swahili, Kate is originally from the UK, and moved to Tanzania with her biologist husband after university. When she arrived, she was struck by the plight of street children, and subsequently set up child rights organisation Mkombozi. Although no longer in charge of the organisation, she is now spearheading the 50% campaign, run by a coalition of child rights organisations, to campaign for the rights of children in the East African country.

When I came to Tanzania originally, we lived in Moshi, and there were lots of children there begging for money. There were a variety of organisations working with street children, but they often didn't work with children who were involved with drugs, or who were fighting or had other problems they did not want to deal with.

Our work arose from responding to what the kids were asking for, really. So we began by setting up a soup kitchen and providing vouchers for children instead of money – they children said “we need an education”, and then “now we need a place to sleep” so the organisation, Mkombozi really grew from simply responding to what children were asking for.

There was a big what I would call 'bleeding heart' response, with people saying: “oh, these poor kids need rescuing”, but our attitude was more about enabling children who were already very resilient to access the services they said they needed, rather than there being some adult-defined idea of their welfare. And these values are still the basis of the organisation today.

Do people have a problem with me being a Westerner here? Well, it depends on who you are. No one ever had a problem and its not really an issue – I speak fluent Swahili and have lived here for 15 years now. In the beginning, the government just thought we were naïve, and just didn't believe we could do anything about the problems. They tend to listen to me more now because I have a national reputation as a child rights person.

I am able to say things that Tanzanians, being more diplomatic, would not be able to say - although Tanzania has changed a lot in the time that I have been here. Also, its different in terms of how I'm seen because I work at grass roots level as opposed to the big organisations like UNICEF.

There's a lot of resistance to rights in the country. People say “how can children have rights when adults' rights are violated every day?” And when they think of children with rights, they think of American children having 'too many' rights and being violent or something. Just mistaken impressions. But I have to approach it very carefully, so I try to talk to talk about it in a different way. I ask how many people present are parents, to which everyone raises their hand, and then ask them if they want to provide their children with all that they need, and of course everyone agrees that they must. It is about being sensitive to local situations.

At the moment I am coordinating the 50% campaign, which is based on the idea that 50 per cent of the population are children, so we need to uphold their rights. Tanzania has not domesticated the Convention on the Rights of the Child – there has been a child rights act on the table for 13 years – and the campaign is about raising awareness and promoting legal reform.

Reform is not just about the CRC though, since there are some colonial laws still in existence such as the one on “the removal of undesirable people”, which applies to street children. We are using strategic litigation (what is this?) to challenge the law, and we are hoping to get a judgement on it soon.

There have been some really shocking things about the case. We are challenging the law on constitutional grounds, and the Attorney-General has decided to contest the claim. Why? Also, the level of seriousness of the lawyers for the Attorney General has been astonishing. They were handing out adverts for a pizza place in court...it was as if they were treating it like a game. I think it is symptomatic of the attitude towards street children, with the view that they are subhuman.

Attitudes are changing though. For the first time since I have been here, people are starting to say the same thing about street children, even in government, although there is still a massive road block in terms of the actualisation of policy. Some people think that all you need is a policy on something.

The best thing about my job, and this might sound sanctimonious, is seeing the young men with families who used to be on the street. Being able to effect change is wonderful, and it is just fabulous working with Tanzanians. The worst thing is having to multi-task, because I wear a number of different hats in my work.