STREET CHILDREN

STREET CHILDREN PROJECT

I am Noah Suluku working as intern for think build change salone (T,B,C,S).I started this internship program as child activist for about two and half months ago.

The interaction with my fallows interns and the coordinator of (T, B, C, S)make me to be more authorative in critical thinking,awareness,friendship and tolerance on vital issues such as child adovcay,human right abuse and on environmental concern or recent health problem like HIV and AIDS.
This unique sharing experience with other less fortunate children and disable as well trust and life skill are gained which enable them to reclaimed their potential as productive citizen.Basically,I always wanted to be a child activist in other to speak for the under privilege children, because in the community that I find myself I saw a lot of children roaming the street of Freetown looking for old car batteries, coppers and metal to earn their living. My project which is street children, I started it initially to look into what is causing the high influx of street children in the country. Perhaps one would say the problem is traced from the ten year civil war we had in sierra Leone were children lost their parent and families members. And the other factor was that their parents inability to provide their spouse with basic necessity of life

Nevertheless “According to research in sierra Leone there are two categories. The first category is defined as children who stay with their parents /guardians at home but who go on to the street each morning to socialize or to earn money for themselves and sometime they return home in the evening. The second category is children who have abandoned their home and are permently on the street living and working on the street. They are not under any parental care.
Both categories are vulnerable to child abuse and child right violation. It is impossible to give a definite number of street children in sierra Leone as there are not been an official collated record of street children in the country to date”. My project is basically situated along the following localities,kroobay,Bus station, Dumping site(Bomel)and Mabela community center respectively.
During my research in this above mention communities there is a lot of street children’s.Sinces the areas are under developed the children are not expose to certain facilities so they have to go in search for food from one place to another.
There is less or no infrastructural development were the children can socialize into some skill training and the environment that they live in serve as environmental hazards to them, no proper schooling for them so they engaged themselves into stealing, drugs taking and grumbling.
Furthermore, the few who managed to find themselves in to schools they have been driving out of school because of corporal punishment and some cannot afford to pay there fees.
Moreover, we have a lot of child agencies in sierra Leone but what are they actually doing the children in the street are suffering.
I normally hear people saying” the children are the future leaders of torrow”.But what are they doing in other for the children to achieved this dream.
THE VOICE OF SOME STREET CHILDERN IN SIERRA LEONE.
I was staying with my parents in kono where was separated from them when the town was attacked by the Revolutionary United Front(R U F )rebel. I fled with a large convey of people to Freetown where I am now staying in the street as I cannot hear any information about my family whereabouts.
16 year old street boy (name with held)
My parent cannot sent me to school so I have to sell charcoal to feed the house(7year old street boy name with held)
My parent are all death so I did not have anybody to sent me to school, so I have to do hard job to survive.(10 year old street girl)
COMMENTS
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In my own words or phrase what is happening to the children in the street I will it “

NON COMPOS MENTIS MANNER”

The following photo’s will show you the kind of children am dealing with.