Streetism; A Concern To All Ghanaians (2)

The surge in the common misconception about street children in our country is a concern for me personally and CHANGE MAKERS as an organization, most importantly about how we can solve streetism holistically by knowing who they are, where they from, and how they even get onto the streets in the first place. The main purpose for this write up is to begin deepening the awareness in the public and to launch a National Campaign dubbed “GET THE CHILDREN OFF THE STREET CAMPAIGN” so as to find lasting solutions to addressing this national issue that confronts us as a nation.

The Campaign would be launched in Accra on September 6, 2017.CHANGE MAKERS, have written a Concept Policy Document which would solve STREETISM holistically in our country. We are calling on all the Statesmen, Stakeholders, Corporate Ghana, the Media and all Citizens to come onboard to support this National Campaign of dealing with this social problem that confronts our country.

Our nation has been through a lot of challenges and still faces some critical social problems which need our immediate action and we can only solve this problem, when we work together and get the children off the street through a holistic approach. Change Makers which is a youth development organization has developed a Concept policy document that if implemented would solve the problem holistically and can even be replicated in other countries across the globe.

We will outline some of the main problems that make children get onto the street and suggest best ways we can collectively deal with it.

Causes of Streetism
There are millions of street children across the world and Ghana is not exempted. Many believe that this social problem is caused by single parenting and broken homes, some school of thought also thing it’s caused by peer influence and child neglect but I believe that of all these factors raised, the most predominant cause of STREETISM is poverty and bad economic situations in a country.

In recent times in Ghana and even globally, the number of street children have doubled and in other countries tripled due to the detoralating economic fortunes in the country and the world as a whole. Notwithstanding these factors, some have attributed the causes to bad leadership and misplaced priorities of government. They believe that much can be than about the situation if little attention and resources are channeled to dealing with the problem.

How many of them?
We don’t actually know the number of them on our streets but what we are sure of is that there are 1000s of them sleeping at our bus stops, shopping malls, on pavements, market places and under traffic lights in our towns, cities and villages in the country.it is very difficult to get the number of them on our streets due to their lack of permanent location and difficulty in tracking all of them. Our research conducted revealed an estimated figure of 210,000 thousand street children in Accra alone currently and close to 680,000 across the country. The census conducted by AMA in 2011 and 2012 estimated a total of 84,492 street children in Greater Accra alone. Unfortunately, due to worsening economic situations across the globe and here at home, not much is done about it and the numbers are doubling by the day.

Why are they on the streets?
Increasingly in our country now, are many factors which can or push children onto the street. Most prominent of these factors include poverty, family breakdown, violence, discrimination, and forced marriage. However, there are also other factors which can pull children to the street such as drugs, friendships, adventure and city glamour ie migrating from their original village homes to the towns and cities. It is often a combination of these push and pull factors that keeps children on our street.

Conclusion
We cannot leave the safety and security of our country under the peril of surging numbers of street children in our cities, due to poverty, irresponsible parenthood, neglect, abandoned children without care. It is a concern that poses threat to our country and that is why we have called on the media, corporate Ghana and the respective stakeholders of our country to partner with us CHANGE MAKERS to deepening the awareness in the public. We should see these growing numbers of street children as a shared responsibility that needs partnership to solve, why because it impact on all of us, we should no longer see it as a sole responsibility of government again but rather one whic