QUESTION: write an academic paper on the situation of street children in your area or town. In writing this academic paper the following must be considered. 1. Definition of streetism. 2. Types of streetism. 3. Causes of streetism on children in your area. 4. Effects of streetism on children in your area. 5. The role of teachers, schools, community and government in combating streetism in your area, town or Zambia FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS 1. It must be typed. 2. Eight(8) pages inclusive of reference 3. Refer to six books or more 4. Due date: 14th September, 2012

Streetism is known to be one of the issues concerning society. However , in this essay the main focus is about the meaning of streetism and types of streetism, causes and effects of streetism on children and the role of teachers, schools, community, and government in combating streetism. The term streetism comes from the concepts street and street youth which share the three elements; these elements are spending a significant amount of time on the streets, making the street into a way of life and inadequate protection, supervision and care from responsible adults. The word street refers to places like bus stops, outside of the shops, minor and major roads of the towns, parking lots, garbage disposal places, markets, bars, shopping centers, and other public places where youths temporally or permanently stay in the form of shelter or seeking refuge. These are the places where street children are most commonly found. Streetism as a concept refers to a way or a system where young children find themselves on the streets for various reasons but mainly as a source of shelter or employment to sustain their livelihood.
These children on the streets are engaged in some sort of work which include among others; selling foods, selling plastic bags, doing part time jobs as carriers of language. However, they also engage themselves in some illicit activities to earn some livelihood.

Streetism is a term which is used to describe children who are forced to spend most of their time away from their homes, involving themselves in menial income generating activities so that they can survive. They often stay on the streets, struggling in order to find food shelter where they can sleep each night. This vice has been in existence for a long time now and is mainly common in major cities like Lusaka, Kabwe, Livingstone, Ndola, Kitwe to mention a few.

There are various types of street children. , opaque (1996) has categorized “street” children into three economic groups: children on the street, children of the street, and abandoned children.

Children on the street are those engaged in some kind of economic activity ranging from begging to vending of manufactured commodities of food. Most go home at the end of the day and contribute part of their earnings for the economic survival of the family unit. They may be attending school and retain a sense of belonging to a family or household. Because of the economic fragility of their families, these children may eventually opt for a permanent life on the streets. These children their many causes of being found on the streets is economic reasons. They are found on the streets in order to find something which can add to the food basket at home. They are mainly found or come from poor families, children headed home, and single parent headed home. According to UNICEF (1991) report, “ these children spend a significant amount of time on the streets and making the streets into a way of life due to economic constraints.” They belong to the category of urban poor children. They are usually termed as “partial dependent street children.”

Children of the street actually live on the street. Family ties may exist but are tenuous and maintained only casually or occasionally. Their ties to household and families is accidental and at best tenuous. Most of these children have no permanent residence and move from place to place and from town to town. These children have turned the streets into their permanent homes. They live and sleep on the streets. They may have parents or guardians, or they may be orphans. They have a home where they come from but don’t go back home to sleep. They sleep on the streets and work on the streets. Their activity is begging even though they may engage themselves into minor part time jobs like car cleaning, and carrying bags. These are referred as “partial independent street children.” Many of them are have a life outside their homes or away from a responsible adult. For them the street is the significant point of reference in their existence.

Abandoned children are entirely without a home and have no contact whatsoever with their families. Some of these are children abandoned at a very early age who have little or no knowledge of their families. There is therefore very rarely a successful way of reintegrating them into their original home environment. These children include; orphaned children, runaway children.
According to Annew(1996), “some segments of the children abandoned on the streets are distinguished because of the impact of HIV/AIDS and other related diseases which leave children without parenting.” They leave most children on the streets especially when there are no elderly people to take care of them. Mortality of these adults leave their children without support in terms of shelter, food and clothes, and cannot afford to go to school. Therefore they end up in the streets to find refuge and means of living.
These children are referred as “independent or hardened street children.” These have little or no contact with relatives and have little interest of being under adult supervision in a home. They have broken with conventional society being committed towards Serving on the streets. They have no intention of leaving the streets and they even adopt a street identity.

There are other categories of street children. These include; street youths, social streetism, those who are physically challenged, those children born on the streets from street adults.

Street youths and social Streetism is as a result of problems that are experienced by people due to social problems associated with industrialization and urban migration. Youths fail to gain formal employment which affects their livelihood and eventually they are found in the streets in the hope of finding employment.

Physically challenged children are those who have various disabilities. These they find themselves on the streets to beg alms. They have no means of livelihood and end on the streets begging for money and food. They are said to be incapable of doing anything meaningful at various forms of work. Hence they are stigmatized and sent out of homes by some guardians who are not willing to take care of them. These include also those who accompany/escort disabled adults/parents in town who beg for food and money.
Children born on the streets include those who are born from the street adults like disabled adults who are on the street. These children end up also on the streets as their parents are on the streets. When they grow up they also start begging on the streets because they don’t have a home to go to and any means of livelihood. The other category of children born on the streets is those children born from adults who were street children and had taken the streets as their homes and are having children on the streets. These born children have no place they can call a home and end up on the streets begging.

The last category of streetism includes street adults. These are adults who find themselves on the streets due social and economic reasons. This main category of adults includes physically challenged who are found in the streets as a source of livelihood. They are found on the streets to beg for food and money. These they also fall into categories like street children. Some have no homes and have turned the streets as their only known sanctuary and place of habitat. Some have homes where they come from but brought into town on the streets every day to beg arms and in the evening they are taken home to spend their nights. They may be the owners of the homes or they may be dependents.

There are various causes of streetism. These are the factors which cause children and some adults to be on the streets. These include; increasing levels of poverty, deaths from HIV/AIDS, modernization and changes in family structures, economic restructuring and unfair distribution of national resources, family neglect and absence or little care of children, child labor, and disobedience.

Poverty is the major cause of streetism. Poverty is the state of deprivation. Being unable to meet basic standards of living. It's the state of being poor which is caused by insufficient productivity of resources which can sustain life. Lavemew .T (1995:219) states, “poverty as the standard of living that is below the minimum level considered and reasonable by society.” Due to massive levels of poverty in the communities, Parents find themselves in situations where they cannot support their families. Finding food to eat at home is a big problem. Children abandon schools because parents can not manage to pay for their school requirements. Eventually these children find themselves on the streets to find some means of survival.

HIV/aids is a major kill on earth. It has claimed a lot of lives leaving children without parents to take care of them. This has resulted in many children being orphaned and without proper care from responsible adults. This leads children to on the streets to fetch for food from well wishers. These may be double orphans or where the breadwinner is the one who had died. Children are left with no option but to go on the streets to look for part time jobs.

In the olden days in traditional society people in communities were living in extended families. Therefore in cases of death, orphans were being kept by surviving relatives. Due to modernization and changes in family structure, a Western custom relatives no longer takes on and support extended families. They stick to a nucleus family. This has left many children without support and parental guide a situation which has forced them to be on the streets.
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During the early 1990s Zambia was seen to have a lot of programs aimed at improving the economy. One such program was economic restructuring which brought about other measures such as privatization of most and major parastatal companies being sold to individual hands. This led to massive job lay down which left a lot of people unemployed and have no means of supporting their families. Some of these former government employees are up to date not paid their money. Both the their children and themselves are on the streets looking for something to do to earn a living.

Family neglect and irresponsible parenting is another cause of streetism. In some homes some parents have abandoned their homes and children living them without support. This is more common where fathers leave their matrimonial home and wife to go and live with a second wife. Such homes children end up in the streets looking for a means of livelihood. Some parents/guardians naturally mistreat the children as such children do not find comfort in those homes and end on the streets as places of comfort and peace. These include homes where parents or guardians are always fighting.

Child labor is a situation where children are forced to perform various tasks or chores which are indeed above their ability in terms of age and strength. Most children in some homes are bread winners. They are given tasks where they are supposed to be supporting the household. Eventually such children see no need for them to belong to a family since they learned to support themselves and they go on the streets to continue with such life. Some are tasked to be selling on the streets as a means of supplementing at home.

The last cause is disobedience. Some children are disobedient to their parents or guardians. These are either they are chased away from home or run a from parental control and be with their peers on the streets.
Streetism has a lot of effects which are mainly detrimental both to the individual and society. Individual or personal effects include; drug abuse, health issues, no access to education, exposure to abuse and defilements, lack of personal hygiene, human trafficking, poor performance at schools, stress and emotional trauma. Societal effects include; high crime levels, underutilized human capital, children turning into irresponsible adults.

Life on the street for these children is not easy to cope with hence they resort to use of drugs to keep them on the streets. This is both for warmth during adverse weather and also for courage when going about their activities on the streets. They use substances such as marijuana/dagga and Bostic. Eventually these children become drug addicts which is harmful to their lives and existence.

Life on the streets exposes children to a number of health risks, due to the unhygienic
Environment, poor quality and/or inadequate food, low access to medical care, exposure to the elements, exposure to acts of violence, sexual risk-taking, etc. HIV/AIDS and Other STIs
For a number of reasons, including lack of parental guidance and supervision, low levels of education, exposure to sexual abuse, and economic pressures that can lead to selling sex, children on the streets are at increased risk for contracting sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS.

Being on the streets denies these children the chance to go to school. Because they are on the streets these children have either stopped school or had no access to school a situation which makes them more vulnerable to ignorance. Lack of education entails that a person will be economically dependent and also lack of understanding of national issues which leads to low participation at a national level. Those who have a chance to attend school have low performance in school programs. They spend most of time on the streets and have no time to concentrate at school hence low grades at school.

Street children are faced with a lot of abuse on the streets which include rape cases, defilements, child abductions and human trafficking. They also stress and emotional trauma because of the things which they see on the streets and this affects their mental development.

Street children are involved in a lot of criminal activities on the streets in order to earn a living. It is these street children who become hardcore criminals when they become adults.

Streetism has also resulted into underutilization of human capital. There are a lot of people on the streets who are not productive. If utilized properly these people can contribute to the development of the nation.

Breaking of morals and lack of parental guidance for these children on the streets leads to them growing into irresponsible adults. Meaning that more uncared children h
Who will eventually be on the streets also.

To address the challenges of streetism there is a need for concerted effort from the individual, society, and government. In addressing this challenge government has introduced compulsory free primary education. This is to enable children from poor families to access school. It has also introduced a system where a girl child can go back to school even when she has become pregnant after giving birth. At a higher institution like the universities government bursaries to enable students from poor families to complete tertiary education. The government also introduced training camps supervised by the Zambia national service to train street children in skills programs to enable them to acquire skills which can help them earn a living.