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The underlying ethic of Kulula is to emancipate the young girls

Kulula Life Skills Centre is a medium term facility. We believe that most of the girls can achieve their aims within eighteen months (maximum two years) in an intensive programme such as this.The project is located on a small farm not far from the city - the freedom, of a small farm, that can be provided in terms of living space, solitary areas, variety of activities, etc. is important to keep these girls content with their surroundings.

Philosophy of Kulula Life Skills Centre

The Zulu word 'khulula' can generally be understood to mean emancipation and to break free - to be untied or unshackled. The underlying ethic of the project, in line with the name, is to emancipate the young women/girls. The word 'rehabilitate' denotes that there is some desirable state in the child's past that the therapist must lead her to rediscover and return to. In our experience the majority of these girls result from abusive homes where they were habilitated to be dysfunctional. A project such as Kulula can therefore be described as a habilitation project, where the child is guided to discover, and existentially embrace the values, skills and norms of new standards that will provide her with a respectable place in normative society.

Since most of the girls were victims of childhood sexual abuse they started acting out in their early teens, which disrupted their academic careers. We believe Kulula should not rigidly endeavour to move the girl to acquire a grade 10 or 12 certificate (since many arrived on the streets at age 12 (grade 7/8) and are now ages 16-17). The programme should be flexible enough to allow some children to finish their academic qualifications, but others may benefit more from a job-skills or self employment skills qualification.

The emphasis of the project must be on therapy. Girls that have spent even a short time on the streets surviving as prostitutes or strippers, often present with severe pathology that requires extensive therapy. The factors that destabilised her early in her life, and those factors that made her feel attracted to drugs and a deviant social life, should all be dealt with before she leaves the programme.

Discussion of the Problem

Teenage victims of childhood abuse often experience problems that lead to failure to comply with the standards of the norm. They often run away from home, are truant from school and easily become involved in unsavoury sub-cultures. Most of the children The House works with have shared this background and have had contact with the systems before, however, many falls through the cracks in the systems and end up on the streets of the inner-cities as girl street children. They remain invisible to the public eye, however, because they do not sleep on the streets in cardboard boxes but work as child- prostitutes in brothels and hotel rooms.

When this child decides to seek help again, she will most probably not look for it from the systems but will approach private organisations and individuals - nevertheless, the systems in place will have to deal with her in terms of the Child care Act to facilitate a placement. This teenager comes to the system as one that was probably sexually abused as a child; she has a track record of running away from care; she is probably drug dependant; she most probably had to make sexual compromises to survive street life; and usually she lost her last bit of innocence in a life of prostitution. This girl-child knows drug dealers, brothel owners, crooked cops and criminals by first names. She has burned so many bridges that few people will take her in, and if they do it will not facilitate her healing. She has been patronised, as a prostitute, by the middle and upper class pillars of our society and is rightfully distrustful of it; she is not only rebellious but is sexually dysfunctional and most professionals will determine that she has anti-social personality disorder; upon closer inspection professionals will find she has pronounced dissociation of ego states (the device by which she survives sexual abuse, prostitution and society's judgement of her).

Kulula Life Skills Centre proves to be a rare source of hope for the difficult-to-place or rather the 'un-placeable'girl child, and the impact this project is making on the street culture is of tremendous value. The program takes for granted the early maturity of these girls (due to their exposure to numerous rapes, prostitution, drug addiction) and treats them with much respect, and affords them an unusual amount of freedom of coice (one may choose to leave at any moment), within a highly disciplined environment.

We strive to encourage the girls to break free from their abusive pasts, to seek answers and to deal with inner issues that are usually 'swept under the carpet'. Kulula creates a holistic environment, within a friendship/family structure, allowing nature's helping hand with the healing of our children.

Verbalized needs

We have learned from those children, whom we have referred to rehabilitation centres or who were reintegrated back to their families, that they are frequently unsuccessful because they were not provided with coping mechanisms, personal and social skills to make a transition to a further phase possible. Furthermore we know it to be imperative that these girls be provided with the mechanisms to cope with a background of sexual abuse both as a child (80% of our children were molested as children) and by their life on the streets.

What our girls verbalized as some of their needs:

A viable alternative to their current lifestyle - a choice
Guidance and emotional care
Safety and protection
Acceptance and respect
Skills and education
Long-term therapy
Being able to be part of society
Reintegration with family and society

It is our estimate that these children need to be domesticated and rehabilitated in a family setting where they can acquire social skills and other personal skills that will make integration with normative society a possibility.