Retrieval of youngsters from clubs, streets and agencies
This program utilizes volunteer workers who join us on day and night searches for missing children who are known to have arrived in Hillbrow. These trained volunteers also visit the large number of brothels, sex clubs and some escort agencies on a regular basis. The fieldworker's task is to befriend the girls, bringing The House and other therapeutic resources to their attention, and to do informal counselling on the streets. This programme keeps us informed of activities and undercurrents in the subculture. The program utilizes a specially equipped vehicle, called Daisy, to assist field workers in their task. The matter of personal safety is always a major concern since our work necessarily involves us in the heart of the subculture of vice.
These workers live with the very frustrations of the fact that our legal and moral systems are in decline; that the policing system is corrupt; and that the social welfare systems are inadequate and can not deal with the problem at the cost of our children.
Aims and Objectives
- To retrieve girls in need of care from the streets, clubs, escort agencies, and other places where commercial sex is practiced.
- To create a 'therapeutic presence' in the: Streets, Clubs, Brothels, Escort Agencies and other areas where children are exploited.
- To be therapeutically involved, on grassroots level, in the subcultures of vice (and in particular those which exploited children).
- To advertise The House in these areas.
- To maintain an intimate working knowledge of the subcultures of vice and it's related aspects.
- To work with law enforcement agencies where possible and to expose those that is corrupt.
- Distributing condoms and educational literature
- To provide other programs of The House with information, to be used for: Training, Public Relations, Therapy, Public Education, etc
- To recruit, train and employ volunteers to do Fieldwork and to promote the services rendered by The House Drop-in Centre
Evaluating Performance of Field Work
By being able to fulfill Fieldwork's Aims and Objectives children will be rescued and saved from a most definite live of hell - taking into consideration the systems of vice they have to become part of to survive, as well as exposing them to the incredibly high risk of STD's and HIV/Aids through potential involvement in prostitution and drug addiction. To actively monitor and evaluate the lives touched by The House's Fieldwork program is difficult since on numerous occasions a 'once off' contact with a child at risk prevented that child from getting involved in street life.
