2007年VOA标准英语-West African Street Kids Face Bleak Future

By Naomi Schwarz
Thies, Senegal
19 June 2007

Kids who live in the streets are a growing problem in West African cities.  Troubled youths, orphans¹, and children with family problems often run away from their homes in small villages and wind up in cities surviving off what they can beg and steal.  As Naomi Schwarz reports from the Senegalese city of Thies even the volunteers who try to help these children are suffering from a lack of resources.

In a compact square, near the center of Thies, a small Senegalese city 60 kilometers east of the capital, a group of boys hang out on benches, on a windy day.

Idrissa Diop is one of them.

He does not work, he says, and he does not go to school.  Both his parents have passed away.

It was a long time ago, he says, when he was eight-years-old.

Now Diop, 18, says he lives with his grandmother in a nearby village, but it has been a long time since he was there.

"I do not sleep there," he says.  "I sleep here," he continues, gesturing to the small square where he and the others have been sitting around.

Nearby, another man, Modou Barry, who hangs around with the kids, spits out a rag he has been sucking on.

The rag was infused with a drug, says Jean Badiane Seck, a volunteer with the Association for the Protection and Promotion² of Youths (ASPJ).

Ignace Thomas, another volunteer, says drug and alcohol habits are some of the reasons these youths ended up on the streets to begin with.

Their families would punish and yell at them for drinking too much, he says, and the boys did not want to be told what to do, so they would leave.

In other cases, he says, there are family problems that lead the youth to leave.  It is difficult to come by accurate statistics about the number of children living on the streets of West Africa, but there are many examples, and few opportunities for help.

runaway3 teens he has helped" hspace="2" src="/upimg/allimg/070628/1518090.jpg" width="210" vspace="2" border="0" />

Jean Seck is surrounded by runaway teens he has helped

Seck recounts the story of a young man who left home when his mother remarried.  He did not get along with his stepfather.  Like other runaways⁴, he slept in the streets and survived by begging, taking small jobs, and stealing.  When he became sick with tuberculosis⁵, he wanted to go back home.

We called his mother, Seck says, but she refused to accept him back.

ASPJ organized medical treatment for him, but by the time they tried to bring him to the hospital he had disappeared.

The group has been working to with runaways in Thies for more than 10 years.  Founded by a sociologist⁶ from a nearby village, the association used to have a shelter that offered programs in the arts and skills for street kids.  They also offered start-up money and advice to help some youths find legitimate⁷ employment.

Center for runaways in Thies closed due to lack of funds

But the lack of funds forced them to close the center a few years ago.  Now, equipped only with a pharmacy⁸ in a duffel bag, Seck and Thomas and other volunteers go out on the streets to find the runaways.

Mame Couna Thioye, an activist⁹ with a Senegalese-based human rights non-governmental organization, says the number of kids on the streets is growing.

She says the problem is that people are not enforcing laws designed to protect children.

She says, legally, all children under the age of 15 should be in school, but many are not.

Families, driven by poverty, see children as an extra helping¹⁰ hand and send them to work.

And, Thioye says, when troubled kids rebel or run away from a problem situation at home, there is no state mechanism¹¹ to help them.

1 orphans   

孤儿( orphan的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The poor orphans were kept on short commons. 贫苦的孤儿们吃不饱饭。
• Their uncle was declared guardian to the orphans. 这些孤儿的叔父成为他们的监护人。

2 promotion   

n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传

参考例句：

• The teacher conferred with the principal about Dick's promotion.教师与校长商谈了迪克的升级问题。
• The clerk was given a promotion and an increase in salary.那个职员升了级，加了薪。

3 runaway   

n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的

参考例句：

• The police have not found the runaway to date.警察迄今没抓到逃犯。
• He was praised for bringing up the runaway horse.他勒住了脱缰之马受到了表扬。

4 runaways   

（轻而易举的）胜利( runaway的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They failed to find any trace of the runaways. 他们未能找到逃跑者的任何踪迹。
• Unmanageable complexity can result in massive foul-ups or spectacular budget "runaways. " 这种失控的复杂性会造成大量的故障或惊人的预算“失控”。

5 tuberculosis   

n.结核病，肺结核

参考例句：

• People used to go to special health spring to recover from tuberculosis.人们常去温泉疗养胜地治疗肺结核。
• Tuberculosis is a curable disease.肺结核是一种可治愈的病。

6 sociologist   

n.研究社会学的人，社会学家

参考例句：

• His mother was a sociologist,researching socialism.他的母亲是个社会学家，研究社会主义。
• Max Weber is a great and outstanding sociologist.马克斯·韦伯是一位伟大的、杰出的社会学家。

7 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。

8 pharmacy   

n.药房，药剂学，制药业，配药业，一批备用药品

参考例句：

• She works at the pharmacy.她在药房工作。
• Modern pharmacy has solved the problem of sleeplessness.现代制药学已经解决了失眠问题。

9 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

10 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

11 mechanism   

n.机械装置；机构，结构

参考例句：

• The bones and muscles are parts of the mechanism of the body.骨骼和肌肉是人体的组成部件。
• The mechanism of the machine is very complicated.这台机器的结构是非常复杂的。