1.7 Million Street Children Receive Support From SCEF As 97 Reintegrated Into Society
Report by Ben LARYEA
Panelists have called on government and other intuitions to urgently address the challenges associated with street connected children and put in measures to ensure that they are well integrated back into society.
They said such youth must be adequately resource through hands on training to receive the requisite skills to enable them become job independent in their various employment generation.
According to them, institutions must also support street connected youth with the needed startups and logistics and also challenged stakeholders in the sector to create linkages to quickly identify the emerging issues that pushes the youth to make a living on the streets.
They were of the views that broken homes, poverty, drug abuse, rural urban migration among others are some of the factors that increase streetism among the youth across the country.
The panelists made the call at a public lecture and stakeholder forum organized by SCEF during its 15th year anniversary celebration in collaboration with 2REST under the theme, “Turning Research into Action: Advancing the Rights and Welfare of Street – Connected Children in Ghana.
“A comprehensive framework on data about street connect children must be available for research and information gathering,” 2 REST YOUTH Advocate, Mr. Richie Lamptey said.
Dr. Ernestina Korleki Tetteh however urged the media to highlight more on children on the streets to draw the attention of government and other related bodies to address the menace.
A joint communique issued by SCEF and 2 REST called on policy makers to expand social protection measures, set up vocational training schools, protection measures, in apprenticeships and reforms in child protection systems as well as tackle challenges of street youth.
For his part, the Executive Director of SCEF, Mr. Paul Semeh, said young people must be allowed to make imputes in policy formulation, saying his outfit have support more than 1.7 million children and families and have reintegrated 97 children successfully into society.
