The much-awaited National Symposium on children living on the streets will finally take place in Lusaka today, almost two decades after initial advocacy, with delegates drawn from various parts of the country to discuss pertinent issues.
According to invitation letters sent to about 18 organisations from the Copperbelt, Central and Lusaka provinces, government says it has observed with concern, the increase in the number of children living on the streets hence the need for the 3 days national symposium to be held between March 16 and 18, 2022.
The letters dated March 9, 2022 and signed by Ministry Of Community Development and Social Services Director, Department Of Child Development Bridget Moya, state that the national symposium is meant to engage in consultative discussions with stakeholders to evaluate the current strategies being used in addressing this matter of street children.
Government also says it is expectant that the outcome of the meeting will help inform the strengthening and scaling up the current practices through multisector and integrated efforts to address the current and emerging challenges, and to develop strategies that have proved more effective when used in similar environments.
Recently, Kitwe based beautiful gates organization embarked on a 2 weeks long, 365 kilometers walk from Kitwe to Lusaka to petition government to hold a national indaba on street children during which over 1000 signatures were gathered and over 5000 fliers distributed.
This social ill of street children afflicting Zambia today was fueled by PF’s 10yrs of worsening economic stats.
When Lamba Lion Dawson Lupunga got tough and wanted to effect arrests of street kids and the people that gave them alms people thought he had gone crazy. Lupunga had warned that if the issue of streets kids wasn’t addressed quickly it’d escalate. There were no street kids during the 27yrs of UNIP reign. Street kids emerged during the structural adjustment programs that the MMD implemented as advise by the same IMF that the UPND has embraced. You can’t solve the problem of street kids without taking steps to strengthen family ties and values. Most of those children on the streets aren’t even as vulnerable as they pretend. Some are having fun
@2 – I note you mention the UNIP years – exactly what I touched on a few days ago! We were poor and queued for stuff, but society’s moral fabric was intact. People didn’t get sloshed by midmorning, and children were not left to their own devices. Personal morale was relatively optimistic! And, It’s not even to do with this government – the decay ensued many years ago. The results are only now visible, and it’s ugly to bear!
#plant a tree please!
Obviously, one would expect the current government to now take steps in turning round things, otherwise the situation will worsen.
#plant a tree please!