According to UNICEF, there are two different types of street children: 1) âChildren of the streetâ â  children who are homeless and they live and sleep on the street, 2) Children on the street â i.e children who live and work on the streets during the daytime but return back home at night to sleep. However, there can be a strong overlap between the two, and children on the street can sometimes sleep on the street. Nevertheless, living on the streets is caused by a myriad of reasons: Poverty, child abuse, lack of education, and jobs. Whatever the reason, it is usually beyond what the child itself can do anything about. It is important that street children are understood as a product of their context and socialization in order to find solutions. There is a different kind of violence meted out by society on street children according to how low society esteems them. The very word âStreetâ used to define them, strips children of their dignity and discriminates against them â âverminâ, âtearawaysâ, âoutcastsâ, âlost childrenâ, âarea boysâ, are all names used to refer to children who have become disenfranchised by the system that is meant to protect and nurture them. It is a fact that street children are more than likely to come into conflict with the law and the law discriminates against them further, leading to a fast-tracked entry into the juvenile system where more abuse awaits them and hardens these vulnerable children. Eventually prison beckons!
One of the biggest challenges to creating interventions for this specific group of children is the lack of reliable data and in some cases no data at all. The UN Committee on rights of the child mandates that âstates uphold their obligation to maintain a child-rights approach to all strategies and initiativesâ, but this can only be done through the collection of sound data.
JWCA partners with local NGOâs that directly work with street children to support their wellbeing so that through education, rehoming and rehabilitation back into the community, the general public can see them for the vulnerable children they are before they fall into the legal system.
JWCA gathers data on the demographics of vulnerable children via its partners. We do this through structured interviews and questionnaires. One of the biggest challenges to creating interventions for this specific group of children is the lack of reliable data and in some cases no data at all. The UN Committee on rights of the child mandates that âstates uphold their obligation to maintain a child-rights approach to all strategies and initiativesâ, but this can only be done through the collection of sound data.
JWCA partners with local NGOâs that directly work with street children to support their wellbeing so that through education, rehoming and rehabilitation back into the community, the general public can see them for the vulnerable children they are before they fall into the legal system.
To ensure long-term benefit and reach in the charityâs initiatives it is committed to raising awareness amongst its local partners the importance of collecting timely, accurate, relevant and complete data in the course of their work, highlighting how good data is a major tool for detailed analysis that supports accurate targeting of resources and the successful implementation SDG 2030 âNo one is left behindâ.
