GOVERNMENT says the problem of street kids is one of the major challenges being faced in Southern Province.
Southern Province Permanent Secretary, Darius Hakayobe, said the problems have been compounded by poverty in rural areas and peri urban areas.
Mr Hakayobe said this in a speech read on his behalf by Southern Province Deputy Permanent Secretary, Aaron Zulu, during the preparatory meeting for skills training held at provincial administration for the mobilisation of street children and vulnerable youths.
Mr Hakayobe said some of the households in rural and peri-urban areas were living in absolute poverty and did not have access to the basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter.
The Permanent Secretary said as a result of increased poverty in many households, children and youths had been forced to live and work on the street.
Mr Hakayobe said this had exposed youths to bad vices such as child prostitution, early pregnancies and marriages resulting in most of them contracting HIV/AIDS.
He said in order to curb the problem of street kids, government, through the Ministry of Sport, Youth and Child Development and the Ministry of Defence had embarked on vulnerable street children and vulnerable youths rehabilitation and re-integration programme.
Mr Hakayobe said the programme was aimed at equipping street children and youths with relevant skills such as carpentry and joinery for their self reliance.
He said government had also created an enabling environment for vulnerable households to access micro-finance so that they could engage in income generating activities and in the process reduce children’s vulnerability to poverty.
ZANIS/ENDS/FM/EB.
Sad story
Its really a sad state of affair. Some kids tabomfwafye. They do have good parents and homes but ifyamba na fyashala nishi kufulungana. Kulalomba muma street lyonse. Govt has failed in this avenue. NGO’s have tried their best.
Katwishi mwee, fili ekotuleya!
The problem of street kids is now countrywide. The authoriteis should something about it.
Baby C, this is more than a government prob. Its also in our hands..its scary when i think of IMITI IKULA NPANGA saying, what will our future adult citizens be like. We can all make the situation better by giving that book, that jersey, that blanket, that food that ends up rotting in the fridge(i plead guity)…All those a child needs is love. Now we deny them, the right to be educated, the right to be cared for, the right to be a child and not worry where the food will come from, the right to feel safe……….Second strategy,,,, every parent that can afford to raise and care for a child must get an infertility injection…Eish, this been going on for far too long
Mama but the goverment has got power to contain them….i have tried the above advice several times but children dont appreciate. Besides most come from proper family setup.Its the responsibilty of the parents to take care of the chldren they bear. Kukwela ni fast but wgen it comes to care for the children they all run from the responsibilty. mama how many children are we going to help besides ours?
Are you sure its only Southern Province imwe???
Some comparative figures for some provinces would have been very helpful. I’m sure central statics office has such data. Our jounalists can’t be bothered to do a bit of thinking!
One would imagine that ryral areas do’t have street kids, and that it is an urban problem. Aren’t rural areas and villages places where one can find extended families – like uncles, grandparents, cousins, aunties etc. If rural areas begin to have street kids, how much more urban areas. I really hope we will manage to reduce or eradicate this problem.
The suprising thing is that the majority of them in S Province are Bemba speaking.
and so what!!!!! Zambia Yesu
Who told you zambia is for bembas only ? You do not find tonga or lozi street kids roaming copperbelt. We keep our house in order and are not just thinking of stealing. Learn to grow food and maybe street kids in CB will not roam the rest of Zed.
Ubepelefye.
very few Bemba speaking people are in S. province..
by the way am not Bemba so no offence meant.
Cutey, when were you last in the Southern Province of Zambia?
HeHeHe has indicated a fairly correct thing. Go to Southern Province and you will find Kaponyas speaking in Bemba including Strret-kids.
I assure you, you will find characters that have moved from the Copperbelt doing kaponya-type and market-area businesses using Bemba Language starting from Mazabuka all the way to Livingstone. If you have no capacity to go to the Southern Province to note this situation for yourself, please send or ask someone to do it for you.
I hope this is easy and clear to understand let alone do.
What a dull imagination for one to think a person speaking Bemba is a bemba. All kaponyas are Bembas and all street kids are Bembas. Can we also conclude that all musicians are bembas? All marketers are Bmbas? Bemba as I said is taken as an easy language of communication…or may be we can call it as a trading – language. The majority of songs done by any Musician in Zambia will be in Bemba then Nyanja. Why? It’s the catchment they are after. If they sing in the mixture of Nyanja and Bemba he or she knows that there will be high sales. Many people have grown in CB and they have learnt Bemba so you can’t say that only Bembas have invaded the streets. The poverty in Zambia has not…
When you are dull you are just dull baba. I wrote clearly about Bemba Speaking Kaponyas and now you come and show ignorance and failure to understand the English Language. The truth will always override deception and so, stop this blind badly done defence of Bembas as Bemba Speaking Kaponyas and Street-kids are using the Bemba Language even though all of them might not be Bemba by Tribe.
Food for thought: WHY MUST A TONGA TRIBE PERSON STAYING IN MAZABUKA, MONZE, CHOMA, KALOMO, MAAMBA, NAMWALA, ZIMBA, CHILUNDU, SIAVONGA AND LIVINGSTONE use BEMBA LANGUAGE which he does not know well probably when he can communite with TONGA PEOPLE IN THOSE TOWNS TO BEG EASILY instead of struggling in BEMBA?
Maestro,
You are the last person on this blog I would like to have an intelligent conversation with, but in this issue am tempted to answer you since you have singled me out.
The many Bemba people speaking in S.Povince are your likes who briefly lived in the C/Belt because it was ‘ku Migodi ‘ for your fore fathers and thats why I stand to say they are few.. Do not reply to this, as I wish with all respect not to commuinicate with you. period.. with due respect and I mean it.,. life becomes easier pa blogg!!!!!!!!!!!!
But why all this noise about southern province!! I am getting concerned.
Some bloggers are naturally noise and hence
believe whole Southern province belongs to them and can speak for the multitude.
Utter nonsense.
Its news guys. Thats what is hapening in southern. The PS has said it. Yes this problem is all over Zambia and let Govt do something. And dont make a mistake to think when any person speaks Bemba he or she is a Bemba…No. Bemba is just like English …when I see a white person speaking English I should not conclude he is from Mangalande…No. So many tribes speak Bemba in Zambia.
The streekids are not the problem, the problem is what is in store for children, what kind of policies do we have, what is the situation in households. So lets focus on dealing with the root cause other than the symptoms
The root cause is tha failure by the GRZ to provide Zambians with JOBS and also suitable salaries and wages.
I am sure that nuclear families would be willing to support members of their extended family if they have enough income to do so.
Some street kids are just problematic. Some come from decent homes but due to ubuchitomfwa end up in the street begging day in day out. Seems the govt has failed in this aea. Parents too are to blame. How can you have 9 mouths to feed when you get meagre salaries????Some even manage to have impali.
Just remove these steet kids from thes mayhem streets, some are victims of sexual abuse!!!!!
These kids easily migrate to southern Province from Copperbelt and Lusaka. Stop these kids and speak to them, you will notice that, they come by train and at tender age are fluent in Bemba and Nyanja.
The problem is more compounded in Mazabuka and livingstone where the economy seem to be better than other southern towns like monze, choma and Kalomo. SOLWEZI has also been swamped.
So what are suggesting? The street kids cant be Tongas ? That’s an illusion man. Poverty has not spared any tribe. You mean there are no Tonga street kids in Lusaka and copperbelt? Please let us face reality. Zambia is facing this problem and there is no way to pretend it has not affected southern province ..no dear. It’s a problem through out Zambia and we have to find the means of solving it. Southern province for more than a decade now faces severe food shortage than any province in Zambia. SOS every year has come from southern province. So what do you expect? So let us be truthful and face this problem we have . No need to pretend.
You are on the spot HK. The language in the Mazabukan streets now is BEMBA with the increase of Kaponyas and street kids from Copperbelt and Lusaka provinces. This situation is very worrying as thieving may become the order of the day in the mighty Southern Province. However, this is expected as the economy livelihood are hard in Copperbelt now with the closure of mines. Very soon Northwestern province will be hit by the street kids and kaponyas from Copperbelt very hard.
Sad, but his is the reality. I observed this for my self in Mazabuka and Livingstone in the recent few years especially last year when I visited home in almost all of August.
How did we end up with street kids. Jobs? Aids? Economy? deaths? Regarding Bemba speaking Copperbelt and Lusaka, one would be interested to know that copperbelt mines employed people from across the nation – Kaondes, Tongas, Bembas and their many variants. Somehow, Bemba language emrged dorminant. May be Bemba and Nyanja may dorminate the whole coulntry in future. I must say when I first visited Lusaka Nyanja was dorminant. This is not the case any more. This is a good case study for students of demography.
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