By Obbo Yusuf
As interventions to support and reduce street children, Rest in Jesus ministries Iganga embarked on program to train a number of street children with skills that can change their lives.
On Wednesday over 12 children that were picked from Iganga streets graduated in motorcycle mechanics, catering, camera operation and phone repair.
A joyful Basiba Yusuf, the Iganga municipality probation officer said the intervention will help in reducing on the number of young children stuck on streets.
“Not all street connected children wish to live on streets some end up on streets as their last option to survive from abuse at home. A case in point is a one Senyonga who was always beaten by his biological father simply because he never wanted to help him sell Marijuana” said Basiba
“There are many kids sharing similar stories related to abuse, Gender based Violence, child neglect and lack of parents who end up on streets yet when you talk to them they express interest in going back to school and this is an opportunity to such kids however there are also many others who just come to streets due to group influence and parents don’t bother to look for them” added Basiba
The probation officer cautioned parents who neglect their responsibilities saying it has never been compulsory for one to produce but compulsory for one to take responsible of his /her child and failure to do the later they will be dealt with as the law stipulates.
“I connected to street life after my biological father turning into a drug addict in Mbale city ,he used to beat and force me to sell Marijuana on his behalf because he used to fear police ” Senyonga Micheal testifies after graduation into Motorcycle Mechanics
Mulondo Charles the initiator of this project says his mission is to help government get children off the street.
” Ugandan education system is expensive and time consuming and if your to research most of these children who live on street come from poor families while others are Orphans. This means if not assisted with hands on training they will miss vocational skills that would help them change their lives ,Today we are graduating 12 children that lived on street ,with the knowledge and skills they have obtained ,they don’t think of going back to streets instead now they focus on occupying somewhere to practice what they have learned.”
Mulondo has expressed concern that comes with voluntary work saying that they lack enough resources and space to have this done at a large scale so that it can accommodate at least a large number of these children living on streets of different places .
In Uganda Kampala, Jinja ,Mbale and Iganga districts take lead in hosting Street connected children as per the survey conducted by Retrak Uganda and Dwelling places in 2018.
The survey indicated that there are more than 15,000 children living and begging on the streets in Uganda, Mbale district tops the list with the highest number of street connected children.
According to the findings at least 578 children live on the streets in Mbale while other 4039 work on the streets.
Jinja comes second with 3180 and 583 children working and living on the streets respectively. Kampala has 3476 children with 2,066 living and other 1410 working on its streets. Iganga had a total of 3075 street children, however the number of children coming to streets keep increasing every day.
While on streets these children involve in scrap business, hawking items and gambling to survive. many are exposed to bad practices like stealing and drug addiction that puts their lives at risk leaving many rapped, tortured and others killed hence increasing the high crime rates and insecurity in society .
