With the increase of children in streets of Nyamagabe district especially in Nyamagabe town that is in Gasaka sector, the district administration and concerned organizations are set to end this issue and take children back to their homes and families.
A meeting bringing together the district administrators, church leaders, Kigeme Refugee camp and NGOs that care for children convened on Tuesday the 12th.Feb.2013 to discuss every one’s role in keeping children away from streets.
Making the list of children on the streets and the reasons to why they abandoned their homes are the immediate factors to be determined to be able to take the street children back to their families explains Emile Byiringiro the vice mayor for social affairs in Nyamagabe district.
“We will sensitize all people and especially parents of street children immediately after identifying them and reasons why they ran away and then find solutions to each and everyone’s problems” says Byiringiro.
This meeting also decided on sensitizing people to stop giving alms to the street children and also to stop giving them work to do like making them carry things to be paid which makes them feel that staying on the streets is better than being at home because they have money. The sensitization begins on Wednesday the 13th.Feb in Nyamagabe market.
A team to learn thoroughly on how to get the street children out of streets, to be taken back to schools and to make them live according to their rights was elected in this meeting.
“For this issue to be resolved, it necessitates the participation of every individual and organization to play their role especially teachers, parents, families, NGOs, local authorities” explained Emile Byiringiro.
According to Lambert Hategekimana a worker for National Children Council who was in attendance of this meeting, all concerned individuals, councils and organizations should do the necessary to give security and stability to children to make them stay where they are supposed to be instead of running to streets.
Hategekimana said that children who start begging on streets may become thieves when they grow up with the habit to get money they did not work for. It is good to get them off the streets when they are still young for them to have a better life in future.