The paper explores the impact of religiosity and spirituality on resilience among street children in Zimbabwe. These experiences of religiosity are discussed in terms of how street childhood contributes to resilience among homeless youths. The paper is pitched against a background where debates on religiosity, mainly its role in resilience among street children in Zimbabwe, have not been sufficient. The relationship between resilience and street childhood was explained in line with the flocking theory of resilience by Ebersöhn. A qualitative approach was employed in this study. Semi-structured interviews with street children and key informants were used to collect the data. All in all, there were ten participants, of whom all were street children, and eight were vital informant interviewees drawn from the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare staff, NGO staff, guardians of the street children and former street children. Five street children were female, while the other five were male. The participants were recruited using the purposive sampling method. Data analysis using interpretive phenomenology revealed that among street children, there were phenomena such as divination on one’s vulnerability, praying, attending church services, getting spiritual healing from pastors and prophets and getting reunification and material support from these religious officials. The study showed that vulnerability was still prominent among children. The authors recommend that the government make concerted efforts to mitigate the effects of mental health challenges among street children. The street children must be provided with mental health interventions, schooling, protection from abuse and family reunification support.
Manuscript submitted to the African Journal of Religion and Culture | This work was supported through funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York [grant number: G-20-57628] through the Future Africa Research Leadership Fellowship at Future Africa, University of Pretoria.
