Best Nacem partners Social Welfare Department to reduce children on the street

The number of street children in the country is extremely worrying. This is especially so because the number of children seen begging, selling and loitering on our streets around traffic lights, and under bridges has escalated over the years and has resulted in social vices such as; teenage pregnancy, armed robbery, accidents, deaths, littering and overcrowding on the streets and major cities in the country.

Released findings in a report titled: “Census on the street children in the Greater Accra Region, Ghana” the report estimated that about 61,492 children were growing up on streets in Accra as at 2011.

Again, a situation analysis by UNICEF- Ghana (2013) showed that about 120,000 Ghanaian children are living and or working on the streets.

Using these findings as a benchmark, the Department of social Welfare ( DSW) projected that there would be at least 300,000 children on the streets by the end of 2019.

It is for this reason that Mr. Stephen Nana Afful the CEO of Best Nacem ( a non-governmental organization) has decided to partner the Department of social welfare to reduce street children in Accra under the theme “Operation Get Off the Streets for a Better Life".

The partnership seeks to remove vulnerable street children in Accra to vocational institutions owned and managed by the Department of Social Welfare in the Western , Central and Bono region. The reason for the activity is to make the children useful by giving them handy work in the vocational institutions. The activity seeks to last for three years of which the vulnerable street children would become useful in their community, country and world at large.