NO SCHOOL FOR ONE MILLION CHILDREN

Challenging Heights, a child rights advocacy organisation in Ghana, is warning of a “very bleak” future for about one million Ghanaian children who are out of school.

According to Challenging Heights, the children, aged between five and 15, could be found across the country selling on the streets or engaging in some sort of child labor at times when they should be in school.

Speaking to The Mirror in Accra, the President of the organisation, Mr James Kofi Annan, described the development as “worrisome”, saying, “We are wasting the future of these children.”

Mr Annan said the presence of children on the streets at times when they should be in school contravened Act 560 of the Children’s Act of 1998 which mandates parents – whether single or married – to educate their children.

“There is no excuse for any parent to refuse to educate his or her children because the 1992 Constitution makes it compulsory for all children to access at least basic education,” he added.

He called for urgent and decisive action to get the children off the streets and enrol them in schools, a move which he said was critical to safeguarding their future.

He said many of the children would resort to crime and engage in activities detrimental to the national interest if concrete measures were not taken to educate them.

He stressed the need to sensitize and build the capacity of parents to enable them to educate their children and ensure social protection for them.

Mr Annan called on government agencies to begin enforcing the right of children to education by arresting and prosecuting parents who refused to send their children to school.

He also emphasized the need to improve educational infrastructure across the country, so that more children could be accommodated.Commenting on the concerns expressed by Challenging Heights, the Director of Public Affairs at the Ministry of Education, Mr Paul Kofi Krampah, expressed regret that many children were still not attending school, in spite of the numerous social programs put in place by the government to make basic education accessible and affordable.

He said the government had played its part by providing free education, free books, free school uniforms and free food at the basic level in order to make basic education affordable to even deprived Ghanaians.Mr Krampah said the removal of 40 per cent of ‘schools under trees’ and the abolition of the shift system were all efforts aimed at making basic education more accessible to children.

He said parents whose children were not in school lacked an understanding of the importance of education and called on the relevant agencies to educate such parents in that regard.

Mr Krampah said one effective way of getting children off the streets would be for metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) to enact bye-laws that would compel parents to educate their children of school age.

That, he said, would enable the assemblies to keep track of children in their jurisdictions and ensure that they went to school.The Department of Social Welfare (DSW), which is mandated to enforce the right of children to education, as guaranteed in the Children’s Act of 1998, said it was concerned that many children were not attending school.

The Director of the DSW, Mr Stephen T. Adongo, said his outfit had not been able to enforce children’s right to education because of the lack of resources.“We have the mandate, but the resources and structures must be in place,” he said.

He said the DSW needed resources to educate parents, children and communities on the benefits of acquiring education.He said shelters were also needed to temporarily house children who had been picked up from the streets.

Mr Adongo called on the government to provide the resources needed by the DSW to implement those projects, saying, “There is no future on the streets.”“There should be commitment to this cause. We should recognize the importance of social development and make social protection a priority in this country,” he added.

He also called for an improvement in the quality of education in the country, a move which he said would make going to school more appealing to parents and children.Mr Adongo said efforts must also be made to create more jobs, as the high unemployment rate in the country was a disincentive to many children who would like to go to school.

A CALL TO FIGHT STREETISM BY - FIRST LADY

First Lady, Mrs. Ernestina Naadu Mills has called on First Ladies across the globe to seize the opportunity offered them by their positions to abolish streetism world-wide. She said, overlooking the situation in most countries is only a way of compounding the myriad of social vices facing most nations. Mrs. Mills made this remark in response to a panel discussion for five selected first ladies attending a three day First Ladies summit currently underway in Kuala Lurpur, Malaysia. She cited a phenomenon of a new form of streetism which she witnessed on one of her duty tour in Ghana, which she finds disturbing and urged governments, particularly the first ladies to champion the course of eliminating streetism in their respective countries. The discussion was hosted by BBC’s Mishal Hussain and afforded the first ladies the opening to share their experiences on efforts their countries are making to enhance the welfare of children and provide better safety for future leaders. Mrs. Mills stressed the need for children from deprived communities to be supported and taken off the streets into the classroom. The First Lady also used the occasion to encourage her colleagues to see education as a major pillar towards achieving a better nation and described it as the beginning of development. She indicated that back home in Ghana, the government has started a project of distributing free school uniforms for school children in deprived communities as well as providing schools under trees with buildings.

 Ghana needs a study into streetism 

The acting Upper West Regional Director of the Department of Children, Israel Akrobortu has made a passionate appeal to the government to commission a study into the increasing incidence of streetism in the country.

He said the number of children on the streets is multiplying and if steps are not taken quickly and collectively to find the root causes of this upsurge of streetism, things will get out of hand.

Mr. Akrobortu made the appeal at the celebration of the African union day in Wa.

The African Union Day of the African child was instituted in 1990 by the African Heads of State in commemoration of the massacre of innocent children in Soweto under Apartheid South Africa in 1976. The purpose of the day which is on the theme "ALL TOGETHER FOR ARGENT ACTIONS IN FAVOUR OF STREET CHILDREN" is to draw the attention of both Governmental and Non-governmental organisations, parents and society at large to the many problems that afflict the African child and impedes his development.

Mr Akrobortu said though the apartheid system is no longer in existence, the celebration of the African day of the child is still relevant, because our children continue to be faced with many problems such as diseases, illiteracy, child labour and poverty. These issues he said need to be addressed to ensure the child’s proper development, so that they can contribute significantly to the socio economic development of the country.

‘‘It is an undeniable fact that many Ghanaian families are breaking down and children are being compelled to fight and struggle for their own survival. Family violence and divorce are on the increase among Ghanaians. Emotional and physical abuse of children as well as neglect of children especially their educational needs are becoming chronic problems in our communities’’.


‘‘Today the children on streets are multiplying as more and more join them, those already there are starting families, sadly these families have single parents and if we do not quickly and collectively find solution to the root causes of this upsurge of streetism things will get out of hand’’.

The upper west deputy regional minister, Carle Caesar expressed worry that efforts to address issues of streetism had not been effective enough.

‘‘They have largely been uncoordinated. Without adequate funding and support and adhoc in nature’’

Mr. Caesar called on municipal/district assemblies to take up the issue of streetism more seriously and fashion out the relevant bye laws to deal with it.

He said government on its part will pursue policies and programmes to increase access to education and other opportunities as part of efforts to eliminate streetism, citing the increasing of the capitation grant and the provision free school uniforms and exercise books to pupils in deprived areas.


Story by Rafiq Salam/Wa/Ghana

STREETISM IN GHANA

Written by: PROMISE EDEM NUKUNU

Streetism is one of the commonest societal problems in the world today which is witnessed by both the young and old each passing day. Its prevalence, intensity and visibility has made society to accept it as a part and parcel normal phenomenom of the world. Streetism even though has the tendency of ruing the prospects of a nation; it is barely spoken of unlike domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, epidemic, maternal mortality and human right abuse. Streetism does not occur in private or in secret but it takes place on the very street which commoners, government officials, philanthropists, and leaders use each passing day. Every individual is a witness to streetism but the support that is given to stop its spread is limited. As streetism basically means living on the due to lack of housing accommodation coupled with the difficulty in fending for ones self, the issue of streetism should not be attributed to children living on the street only but adult too who find themselves on the street with problems beyond their strength. Perhaps as streetism is the consequences of domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, epidemic, maternal mortality, poverty and human right abuse having an indepth solution to these societal problems will help in the eradication of streetism.

Streetism and rural dwellers

Rural dwellers have never been satisfied with their standard of living in the rural settlement due to the unfavourable economic situation. Government’s concentration on urban areas in terms of development and refusal to push some of its resource to the rural areas makes like difficult for dweller over there. For some of these dwellers as the main agriculture occupation they depend on is not lucrative enough to take care of the rapid rise in the prices of goods and services it will be better to migrate to the city where they have hope of greener pastures. According to research Over 80% of Ghanaian Farmers are engaged in subsistence farming. Most of them faced with challenges such as lack of capital or labour, lack of access to ready market, unavailability of land and post harvest losses. There are, however, immense potentials and opportunities such as labour, market, land, useful indigenous technologies and farming inputs. Many youth farmers going through the mentioned situation lay down their tool and come to the city without any source of housing accommodation hence end up living on the street till they are able to make enough money to rent a room.

Streetism and forced marriage

Education has not really helped in the eradication of forced marriage in the lives of many girls in Ghana. The fortunate ones are able to escape the trauma of being forced into marriage due to education, those with no kind of education at all are forced into marriage at a very tender age just to solve financial situation at the home or to rescue her family from extreme poverty. For some even in the classroom parents go ahead to arrange marriage regardless of the fact that the education of the girl will go waste. The Ghanaian Times issue of Wednesday March 26th, 2008 reported about the successful termination of a near marriage of a 17year old Junior High School girl in Kumasi, who is preparing for her final year Basic Education Certificate Examination in April. The young girl had been confined for the marriage ceremony planned.

The children's Act defines a child to be under the age of 18 years and the same Act 560, Section 14, sub section one and two say that "no one shall force a child to be betrothed or be subject of any daily transaction to be married". Furthermore the Act 554, 1998' section 109 on forced marriages states that "whoever by duress causes a person to marry against his or her wish shall be guilty of a misdemeanour." Girl who are not willing to adhere to the proposal of the parents and are not fortunate enough to be rescued by this law, turn to run very far away from home to live on the street where no parent will bother them and try to force them into marriage.

What happens next? A child is forced to live home to live on the street. As the girl is not old enough and does not have any profession to take care of herself, she might end up being a whore or begging for financial assistance from men. What happen next? As the man is not willing to always give out his money without gaining nothing he will indirectly ask the girl to come to a compromise with him in terms of sex and financial aid. The girl with no source of income falls in to the intention of the man the man and eventually gets pregnant. The difficult situation then surfaces as the man might not be willing to take paternity of the child making the girl single teenage mother living on the street. The trend of streetism then continues as the mother will have another child living on the street with her.

Streetism and child trafficking

Poverty has rendered many children to live on the street. In Ghana Many children are trafficked for forced labour in agriculture and the fishing industry, for street hawking, forced to beg on the street and as porters. Some parents with good intention for their children give their children out either to a relation or a friend to give them the best life they couldn’t give to their children but these trusted people turn to give these children the worse life that the real parents wouldn’t have given to them. They are engaged into doing menial job which they are never given any financial aid in return. For some parents too, they deliberately due to their own selfish interest give their children out for hiring to do tedious work just like what is happening in the Volta region where by parent give their children out for hiring to fishermen to make them work for them according to the amount they were charged by their guardian/parent. It is estimated that more than 1,000 children are working as slave labourers on fishing boats across the country. Many children who find themselves in such a situation and are unable to bare it , they tend to run away to places where they can be a master of themselves and take charge over the money they make hence making live on the street to trying to fend for themselves. Research indicates that, over 30,000 children are believed to be working as porters, or Kayaye, in Accra alone.

Conclusion

Cambrigde university press: Street children might not be securely lodged in the life-patterns that the middle class impose on young people, but their reward from trying to maintain a minimum standard of living that their parents and governments are unable to provide them is infinitely preferable to living in the absolute poverty that surrounds them. Based on a critique of our current knowledge of the maturation of children, which is informed primarily by Northern mores and ‘scientific’ proofs whose findings derive from this normative framework and feed back into it, this article seeks to explain why we find child streetism so abhorrent and take it for granted that certain norms can, and should, prevail in the South just because they are found in Northern societies.

Child Streetism in Accra. Child Streetism in Tamale too!

Last Tuesday morning, I heard a heart-breaking report on Fiila FM radio in Tamale about the plight of young people who live on the streets. My heart raced to find the writer of the report. So today, I bring you verbatim, the report of child streetism in Tamale, which is said to be the fastest growing city in West Africa.

It’s an honour to share this page today with Ziem Liebyang Joseph Philip (better known as Joseph Ziem) who researched and wrote the said report. Ziem is the News Editor of Fiila FM and doubles as the Northern Regional Correspondent of the Daily Dispatch newspaper. You may contact him at ziemjoseph@yahoo.com. What immediately follows is his report.
“The negligence of some parents to cater adequately for their children is gradually breeding more street children in the Tamale Metropolis. The children are now using the Tamale main Transport station behind the Ghana Telecom Offices as their "homes" where they sleep, bath and eat.
Even though some street adults are also using the station as their sleeping place, about 75 percent of the people using the station as their homes are children usually referred to as "street children". Some of them are without parents and relatives while others are neglected by their irresponsible parents.
Smoking of cigarettes has become part of their lives. Nobody cares how they eat, sleep or access healthcare delivery. One can truly feel or get the clear picture on how these children are managing life only when you take the pain to roam around the Tamale town in the night.
These youngsters, both boys and girls ranging from the ages of 5 to 18 sleep together with some hard guys on pavements, in front of stores and on benches especially around the bus-stops. Most of them are involved in smoking, stealing and prostitution. Some of them are eager to go to school or learn trade but they have no support.
Reports available to Fiila FM from the Youth Idleness Control Centre (YICC), a Tamale based NGO which helps some of these children to learn a trade, has it that the Tamale Metropolis alone hosts close to 4,000 street children who are going through all forms of abuses and life difficulties.
However, our reporter Joseph Ziem asked the children whether they see themselves as street children? They all said yes, but they were ashamed of it, and did not like to be called ‘street children.’ They preferred to be called by their own names. They are apparently very aware of how other people see them, and they told our reporter they call themselves the ‘bad street boys’ because other people think they are bad, because some of them are stealing to survive.

One other important aspect that was considered about the lives of the street children was their security in general. Because most people perceive them as neglected and abandoned children with irresponsible or no parents, they usually intimidate, harass, suppress and use them to their advantage.
But the good thing is that most of them are very cautious of their lives and thus dance to their own tunes since they are fully aware that they will have no relatives to support or come to their defence in case of any eventuality.
I asked them, in clear words why they are not in school. Almost all of them expressed the desire to be in school. Some said though they have parents who have no money to take them to school. I quickly asked, but don’t you know basic education is free in Ghana?
The children intelligently replied: so will the government give us books, bags, pencils, pens, sandals and uniforms? There is no room for us to sleep and there will be no food after school. Some said they have to work to support their families and take care of junior ones because their parents have died, or are sick, or old, just don’t work at all.
The children expect to find work in the street, find friends, earn money, and be able to bring money home to cater for other family.
The children get sick easily, so they tell me, and there is no money for medicine. "If someone needs to go to hospital, we make contribution and if someone hasn’t earned money to buy food, we share what we have". This is the end of the Filla FM news report. My comments follow.
The above report about child streetism in Tamale should shock the conscience of Ghana. Several issues are apparent. First, there are irresponsible parents who enjoy making babies regardless of the reality of their situation. Why bring forth children when you know you do not have the means to take care of them? Child-bearing should not be like staking lotto, with the hopes that someday, some numbers will drop to change ones circumstance.
In times past when Ghana was an agrarian society, it was indeed critical to have several wives and children because they were needed as free labour to work on farms. But no more! The very nature of society has changed. Civilization has caught on with us making it unnecessary to empty ones groin just to populate the earth.
Without a doubt, it is the excess population that spills over into the streets. At one location in Tamale, the above report claims that children constitute 75 percent of people who live on the street. If this statistic is reliable, then we have a big problem on our hands. If nothing is done soon to stem the tide of the phenomenon of the increasing number of discarded youth throughout the county, then in ten, twenty to thirty years, this matter will get out of control and solving it will be next to impossible.
Tamale’s population stood at 300,000 in the 2000 population census. It is currently estimated that Tamale’s population is about 500,000 – still counting. In the above report, the number of street children who live on the fringes of society is estimated to be about 4,000. They are squatters in life and at the mercy of unscrupulous people like rapists. They are open to abuses and to a difficult life. Their safety is compromised.
These children are the victims of the break-down in our society. Not surprisingly, some of them consider the streets as places of hope, of promise and of opportunities, despite the risks because they do not have other options. Some young people spend endless hours of their youthful days as hawkers selling anything they can lay hands on while others are just idle. Yet, we claim that these are the future of tomorrow. Tomorrow indeed!
Fact: the street is no place to grow up. You don’t plant seeds by the roadside on rocky ground in thorns where the wind blows, where wild birds descend and pick the seeds, and yet, expect those seeds to germinate, sprout and bear fruits. As a society, if we do not straighten out this matter of child streetism, someday, we will bear these children like a crown of thorns and their children’s children like a mighty cross.

           

LOVE THE CHILDREN.

Look at this pictures carefully, children on the street are not taken care off.The queation is why should society live this children to suffer. Help to fight against streetism. call +233248775736/ +233249413957
Thanks for your support.

A CALL TO FIGHT AGAINST STREETISM

 

 

Streetism in Ghana

“I would like to go to school, but my parents cannot afford to pay the school fees so I just have to make a living on the streets. I will continue my education if your organisation can help me.”

“Streetism” is a broad term used to encompass the desperate situation of children who are forced to spend most of their time outside their homes, engaging in menial income generating activities in order to survive, and often having to sleep rough on the streets.

Faced with worsening economic conditions in rural areas, characterised by limited support for farming activities, increasing unemployment, poor access to health facilities and inadequate educational opportunities, increasing numbers of adults and children are migrating to the major urban areas of Ghana.

However, their hopes of a new life, economic and educational opportunities, are soon dashed. Instead, in order to survive they are forced to take on menial and often exploitative jobs such as street vendor selling dog chains, plastic bags and iced water, or as market porters or pantry assistants and kitchen hands for “Chop Bars”. As ever, children are cheaper to employ and easier to exploit than adults, so often they become the main earner for their families.

Living, working and sleeping on the streets exposes these vulnerable children to the dangers of robbery and violence, rape, prostitution, drug and alcohol abuse. Diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases are also of increasing concern.

As well as those forced to live on the streets, there is also another category of “streetism”. They are children who come from the city itself, but whose parents or guardians are still facing issues of poverty and deprivation. Unable to pay for school fees, children end up working on the streets trying desperately to earn the money for fees.

The overwhelming majority remain outside the education system, with at best only limited literacy or numeracy skills, condemned to a future of manual labour and exploitation.
Although accurate figures are difficult to find is estimated that there are at least 40,000 street children in Ghana.

In the capital Accra alone, the population of street children has more than doubled in the last five years. Over the years, one generation of street children have given birth to another, with mothers and children remaining exposed to the dangers of life on the streets. In January of 2003 a survey undertaken by a local Ghanaian NGO concluded that there were an estimated 20,000 children and 6,000 babies living on the streets of the city.

And yet, with timely and practical support, the lives of these vulnerable children and young people can be completely turned around.

DONATE TO SAVE A CHILD ON THE STREET

 BY CAB GROUP.

Mastermind and Cabs foundation International – Ghana (MMI-GH), a Human Capital Development consortium, is an NGO dedicated to developing, mentoring, equipping and training the youth in all spheres of life in entrepreneurship, leadership, and human capital development.The organization also aimed at transforming young people to become analytical, ethical leaders, global icons and innovative thinkers.

It is for this reason that MMI-GH has partnered with Cabs foundation, a Personal and Career Development consortium has launched a ten years development project themed AGENDA 2022. This program is aimed at unearthing talents, raising entrepreneurs, human capital development and orphanage aid. Over the years the organization has organized effective entrepreneurship program in which about thirty schools participated consisting of about 3000 students including two Universities with the hope of extending to other part of the country.

As part of our agenda we hope to start our main core value which is saving the street children of Ghana with our ‘SAVE THE STREET CAMPAIGN’

The foundation is dedicated to save the street children in Ghana and equiping them in a skills development centre in Ghana.

The mastermind international is rolling out a compaign dubbed ‘’Save the street campaign’’. The number of street children is worrying and all stakeholders we believe should come on board.

On march 18, 2012 in Accra, Mr. Otu Asiedu, Greater Accra Regional Directr of social welfare department has disclosed that about 61,492 children in Accra are victims of ‘’streetism’’ that calls for a redoubling of efforts to fight its menance.

Now these children plead for money or to provide simple service for us for money; but in most cases we refuse. Very soon, I believe they would feel too big to plead or even feel you are the cause of their woes and resort to looting. Imaging if someone, who is power drunk, decides to go give these people guns and machetes, the peace of Ghana would be compromised. This means that a fly we are suppose to kill today, if not done, would become a dragon to kill us tomorrow.

We should look at the word ‘’ PEACE’’Holistically. If you have peace in the country without the citizens having peace of mind –because they are displaced in ‘’STREETS’’what peace are we talking about.

Though Mr.Otu Asiedu attributed the increase in streetism to poverty, peer pressure, false perception of city life and irrespnsible parenting, Stressing that research findings in the book should be a wakeup call to agencies entrusted the responsibilty to advocate against large family size and

Promote family planning.We believe it is the lack of systems to control this issue.our authorities don’t mind because they think they would escape the impact. They have forgotten their generation would have their teeth set on edge or if that, God is in control, and going to care.

Since our authorities don’t mind and we don’t want posterity to judge us, we are rising up to the challenge- you remember the message you shared on springboard in 2011?

Again, let us look at another, history about the effect of streetism if not properly manage and taken care of.

Now Vicky, this is the history of streetism and it effects in sierra leon and other country in between 1991 and 2002

‘’During ten years of civil war, from 1991 to 2002, the children of Sierra Leone were deliberately and routinely targeted, and witnessed wide spread and systematic acts of violence and abuse. The Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimated that more than

ten thousand (10,000) children were abducted as child soldiers consisting more of street childrens .Thousands more were victims of rape, mutilation, forced prostitution and sexual exploitation. Among the thirty thousand (30,000) people who were disappeared in Argentina between 1976 and 1983 were an estimated five hundred (5000) pregnant women and young children. The military kept pregnant women captive and subjected them to torture until the birth of their babies. The infants were then taken from their mothers, and many were placed in the homes of military or police officers. The mothers were never seen again. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel force fighting the Government of Uganda, has abducted over sixty thousand (60,000) Ugandan children of which majority were street children and youth over the past two decades. Among the war-affected population of northern Uganda, one in six female adolescents has been abducted by the LRA. They have been forced to perform domestic labor and subjected to slavery-like conditions, used for fighting and for sexual purposes.

SOURCE :United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Adolescent Programming in Conflict and Post-

Conflict Situations (New York: United Nations Children’s Fund, 2002), 56, available at http://

www.unicef.org/emerg/files/adolescent_conflict.pdf.

Children were among the primary victims of South Africa’s apartheid regime. In just the two years between 1984 and 1986, three hundred (300) children were killed by the

police, one thousand (1000) wounded, eleven (11000) thousand detained without trial, eighteen thousand (18000) arrested on charges arising out of protest and 173,000 held awaiting trial in police cells. Children constituted between 25 percent and 46 percent of detainees at any one time during this period. During the armed conflict in El Salvador from 1980 to 1992, the military raided villages suspected of being rebel support bases. Families were separated; the parents were often killed and the children taken to orphanages. Some

of these children were adopted by military or police households and others were put up for international adoption. It is believed that the military were responsible for the disappearance of hundreds of infants and children. In today’s world the very idea of a front line or battleground has broken down, as a result of streetism replaced by violence involving states, non-state actors, armed groups, security forces, private contractors, gangs, perpetrators of terrorism and diverse militant cells or factions. The result of this breakdown is an increased threat to civilians, especially other children. The 1996 Graca Machel report, Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, together with a growing body of academic work, calls attention to the many conflicts in which children are singled out for killings, disappearances, unlawful recruitment, torture and other grave violations. Truth commissions, international courts and other accountability processes have documented how street children and children in general have been forced or coerced to participate in hostilities, in some cases replicating the very crimes committed against them. Children, especially girls, have been targeted for sexual violence and rape.

                                                                                                                                             

Sir one thing is that, These acts did not only violate international human rights and humanitarian law; they are among the most reprehensible international crimes. There is considerable momentum to end Impunity, especially for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. A comprehensive regime of international law has been established, but implementation of these standards is lagging. For children the implications are urgent and far-reaching. Failure to improve accountability, provide reparation and enable reconciliation can hamper their recovery and limit their future opportunities. Transitional justice mechanisms and processes are attempting to better enable the promotion and protection of the rights of children affected by armed conflict. This book is a contribution toward documenting and encouraging these emerging efforts. It explores the questions raised when children’s issues are prioritized in transitional justice processes.

It analyzes practical experiences to determine how the range of transitional justice mechanisms can be applied, both to improve accountability for crimes perpetrated against children and to protect the rights of children involved, primarily as victims and witnesses, but also at times as members of armed forces and groups that perpetrate violations. The United Nations Secretary-General has defined transitional justice as:

‘’...the full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempts to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation. These may include both judicial and non-judicial mechanisms, with differing levels of international involvement (and none at all) and individual prosecutions, reparations, truth-seeking, institutional reform, vetting and dismissals, or a combination thereof. The vision and ambition of transitional justice is to enable societies that have been torn apart by violence to recover and to empower individuals – victims, witnesses and perpetrators – to recount their experiences and agree on a measure of justice to inform their future. The impact of armed conflict on children makes it imperative for transitional justice processes to include children’s experiences, to enable their full and protected

Participation and to improve children’s access to justice, accountability and reconciliation

While a definitive measure of the impact of transitional justice processes on the lives of children is not yet available, the importance and potential of transitional justice for children and young people is clear. Not only do children have the right to participate in decisions and in administrative and judicial procedures that affect them, but

SOURCE:   See Piers Pigou, Chapter 4 of  volume 1, “Children and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.”

 See Michele Harvey-Blankenship and Rachel Shigekanee “Disappeared Children, Genetic Tracing and Justice.”

  United Nations, Report of the Expert of the Secretary-General, Ms. Graca Machel, Report

                           

Meanwhile, as to some steps taken to bring, all this to existance, 4 plots of land have been acquired and secure in Dabala, a town in the south Tongu district a suburb in the Volta region, which would be used for building a skills development centre to house and equip the street children with skills to help them see the limelight of their future hence making it a better one  for them.

Further more,some steps has been taken to raise funds for this ‘’SAVE THE STREETPROJECT’’ which would facilitate save the ‘street children’

For this reason as a role model, and mentor,we want you to be part of this campaign.

We want to raise funds to support this worthy course. We don’t want Rwanda 1994, sierra leone 1992 – 2002  to repeat itself in Ghana.

We hope you would give us the platform and also be part of this compaign.

Please,I would therefore, kindly request that you reply swiftly or call me on

 0248775736/ O249413957

We’d expecting to hear from you swiftly.

With Kind regards