City Hall to spend Sh40m to rehabilitate street children

The County Government of Nairobi plans to spend Sh40 million to rescue, rehabilitate and reintegrate street and other vulnerable children in Nairobi.

This is aimed at reducing the number of street children mostly in the Central Business District and in estates.

The exercise according to the Education Department will be carried out in phases in the next financial year where 300 street children will be removed from the streets and other informal settlements to child care facilities.

“The funds allocated are meant to promote the rights of children and also provide protection by rescuing them from difficult circumstances and improve the state of childcare facilities,” said Nairobi County Education CEC Janet Ouko.

Consuming Sh5 million, Phase One will include rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration.

In Phase two, Sh3 million will be spent towards family reunification and integration, Sh2 million to supervise child care facilities and another Sh2 million to undertake trauma and therapy sessions.

The CEC revealed that the county government has already mapped the hotspots and street families base in the CBD and its environs.

Despite rescuing, rehabilitation and reintegration, Ouko said the allocation will also go into the completion of Ruai Rehabilitation centre as well as running four children homes in Shauri Moyo, Kayole, Makadara and Joseph Kang’ethe .

City Hall has been carrying out rehabilitation and reintegration of street children every year with the rescued taken to the county government’s rehabilitation homes.

In the financial year 2019-2020, a total of 281 street children were rescued and rehabilitated.

Seventy-one of them were reunified with their families and the rest were put in child care facilities for rehabilitation.

The method used to rescue them is by the social mapping of street families from their hotspot where they mostly dwell that is around Globe Roundabout, Moi Avenue, Tom Mboya Street, areas around the Kenya Cinema and Mlango Kubwa.

Still, in 2019, Nairobi MCAs called on the county executive to develop a comprehensive policy to inform programmes aimed at rescuing and rehabilitating street children and families in Nairobi.

This is after the county legislators expressed concerns over the proliferation of street families in the capital city terming it a social nightmare

In 2018, the county government rescued more than 700 street children with most taken to the four rehabilitation homes.

According to a census survey by the State Department of Social Protection in 2018, there are 46,639 street families in different streets in the country with the bulk of the families in Nairobi at 15,337.

The Consortium of Street Children in 2016 estimated that there are well over 60,000 street children in Nairobi alone.

Despite intervention by the government to try and rehabilitate the kids from the streets, it has been unfruitful since day by day more kids emerge on the streets.

Some are forced out of their homes due to poverty, others run away from violent homes and others because of family breakups.

Once they come to the streets, some engage in drug abuse turning into drug peddlers and being recruited in criminal gangs.