...Assessing the Effects of Streetism on the Livelihood of Street Children: A Case Study of Kumasi (in Ghana). AWATEY, Samuel* Development Planning Officer, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Ghana. * E-mail of the corresponding author: profdealfas@yahoo.com Abstract This study employed the livelihood approach to examine the effects of streetism on the livelihoods of children who live and make their living on the streets of Kumasi. The study examines the causative factors that push children on to the streets, their encounters and experiences in their attempts to cope with street life. The study used both quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data was collected from 50 street children in eight areas in Kumasi where the street children are predominant. The study identified that children who live on the street adopt a range of survival strategies, both legal and/or illegal, to confront the challenges of urban street life. The study further identified that the plight of children arises not so much out of negative experiences they have gone through such as child abuse or child neglect but broadly to the absence of and inadequate programmes resulting from the low-priority placed on issues related to child welfare in the country generally. These challenge human right and underpin injustice in the country. The problems street children face can be corrected overtime through working with the affected children directly and by addressing the symptoms indirectly. Promotion...
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...Economic Activities and Health Hazards of Street Children in Dhaka City *Prof. Md. Nurul Islam Ph.D Director ISWR,University of Dhaka **Md. Saiful Islam Lecturer, Department of Social Work Asian University of Bangladesh Abstract: The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of street life on the health of poor children who live and work full-time on the streets of Dhaka city. The prime objective of this study was to know the health hazards of street children, who live in the way of harm, and how these experiences and learning, can contribute more effectively towards the future actions for protection of street children. The methodology of the study is based both on primary and secondary data. After collecting necessary data from secondary sources a sample survey was conducted to collect primary field data. Data was collected on the basis of the questionnaire, and the sample of the study was selected purposively. The significant findings of the study reveal that street children live in a highly hazardous environment. It’s a warning sign for any developmental consequences. This paper highlights the present condition of the street children in Dhaka city and recommended some suggestion. Key words: Street, Children, Health, Hazards, Introduction Street children are common problem for a developing country like Bangladesh. Being out in the open street eventually impairs the personality and creativity of Children. The global efforts for preservation of child...
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...A BASELINE SURVEY OF STREET CHILDREN IN BANGLADESH Submitted to The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics National Child-Labour Survey, 2002 –2003 Parishakhan Bhaban, 4th Floor, (Block –1) E-27/A, Agargaon, Dhaka. by Foundation for Research on Educational Planning and Development (FREPD) Sonargaon Road, Palashi Crossing, Dhaka University Campus, Dhaka. e-mail : frepd@dhaka .net, Phone : 8610556 December 7, 2003 Acknowledgement In order to combat the situation of child labour in its worst forms effectively, the size of the affected population must be known. The number of street children in Bangladesh is quite big and until recently the incidence and distribution of street children at both national and regional levels was not known. Their reality in terms of their working, living and health conditions, as well as the degree of hazardousness faced by the street children was also not known. Gathering data on the above issues is very important for planning interventions that would help to know the real situation of street children in Bangladesh. Thus the BBS and the ILO decided to conduct a Base Line Survey of Street Children with the main objective of the survey being to attempt to quantify the number of the street children population at the national level in Bangladesh. This data-collection exercise would generate benchmark data covering different aspects of the realities of Street Children in Bangladesh. BBS and ILO entrusted the FREPD with the responsibility of conducting...
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...We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty." - Mother Teresa Jenny closed her eyes and pictured last year’s Christmas. Her family was all gathered around the tree, everyone wearing smiles and speaking with laughter. It was warm and she was excited not only about the holiday season, but also because she had planned to finally tell her parents about Maggie, her girlfriend of five months. She was a bit worried about how her parents would react but they loved her and would want her to be who she was and to be happy. She couldn’t wait to stop hiding, to stop pretending she was something else. She never thought that would be her last Christmas with her family. She never imagined that a year later she would be living on the streets, cold, scared and hungry watching all the happy families go in and out of the stores and shops. Her parents kicked her out when she broke the news about Maggie. For a while she stayed with friends until there were no more offers of a place to lay her head for the night. She tried shelters until she got beat up one night when someone let it slip she was gay. For a bit she was staying at a home for LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) youth, but they ran out of funding and shut down. Now, she has nowhere to turn and wishes that someone would help her. LGBT youth homelessness is rising at an alarming rate and without specific measures in place to combat the problems these kids face, the U.S. will continue to see that number rise....
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...finding and counting the homeless is imperfect; we simply do not find everyone”. “Why are they all out there? What is Homelessness and what causes it? Homelessness is a very complicated issue that has no social or economic boundary. Mental illness, substance abuse, domestic violence and economic times affect all ages of the Homeless” (G. Davis, personal communication, June 29, 2015). 1. Homelessness and Mental Health Mental Illness seems to be one of the leading causes of homelessness. “During my involvement with the homeless, I knew of a women name Frankie. Frankie was a school teacher, had a husband and two children. One night their home burned down with Frankie’s husband and children being lost in the fire. Frankie lost all rational thinking, not understanding why she lived. Frankie had a complete mental breakdown and ended up on the streets of Dallas homeless. This is a case of mental illness being the cause of homelessness. (G. Davis, personal communication, June 29, 2015). 20-25% of the homeless suffer from mental illness (Portland Rescue Mission. 10 Causes of Homelessness, #3). “Serious mental illness disrupts people’s ability to carry out essential aspect of daily life, such as self-care and household management. Without assistance, these men and women have little chance of gaining...
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...multiple overlapping problems including medical, substance abuse, and emotional and mental problems. Literature suggests that comprehensive and tailored services are needed that address both the immediate and long-term needs of homeless youth. Where appropriate, services should include assistance with meeting basic needs as perceived by youth as a gateway to other needed services. In addition to serving those already homeless, interventions are needed to prevent homelessness among at-risk youth. Lessons for Practitioners, Policy Makers, and Researchers • As used here, the term “homeless youth” focuses on minors who have experienced literal homelessness on their own—i.e., who have spent at least one night either in a shelter or "on the streets" without adult supervision. On occasion, where warranted by the research being discussed, the term is also used to describe homeless young adults up to age 24. • Homelessness among youth in the U.S. is disturbingly common. With an estimated annual prevalence of at least 5 percent for those ages 12 to 17, adolescents appear to be at greater risk for literal homelessness than adults. Although homeless youth appear throughout the nation, they are most visible in major cities. • Research on homeless youth has major limitations. Rigorous research on this special...
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...day and night. I decided to look up some statistics on homeless youth; I got my information from the National Coalition for the Homeless. Considering the statistics of how many youth are homeless is from 2002, there is about over one million homeless youth in the US. Pregnant and homosexual, bisexual, and transgender teens account for the highest percent of homeless youth. That doesn’t really surprise me because when most parents find out that their daughter is pregnant or a sexual orientation they don’t approve of they’ll get angry or not accept it so ultimately they’ll kick them out. With the economy today a lot of teenagers don’t have jobs, so if their parents kick them out then they don’t really have a choice but to slum in the streets or if possible find a shelter. Although, most teens don’t experience long-term homelessness; they usually find a relative or find a way to make it on their own. The National Coalition of the Homeless says that the three major causes of homelessness are family problems, economic problems, and residential instability. None of this information surprises me because of physical and sexual abuse within families and the economy downfall and homes being foreclosed on. Since most youth can’t afford to sustain themselves on their own they turn to other means to make money. Some of these ways are selling drugs and selling their body. I believe that by getting themselves involved in such risky behavior at a young age that they ultimately set...
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...EDU 644 Week 3 DQ 2 Tale of Two Cities and Homelessness To Buy This material Click below link http://www.uoptutors.com/edu-644-new/edu-644-week-3-dq-2-tale-of-two-cities-and-homelessness This discussion is an opportunity to compare and contrast policies and resources that support homeless children and families from two different cities, New York and Chicago. The information you analyze will either support a recommendation you make to either city or an idea for potential application of supports elsewhere. Additionally, the graphic will be included as part of your Week Six Final Project Prepare for this discussion by reviewing the required resources listed below for each city and by reviewing the Week Three Instructor Guidance. • Chicago Resources: Review the All Chicago website, the Chicago Coalition for the Homelesswebsite, and the newspaper articles from Hirst (2013) and Steinberg (2012) about homelessness in Chicago. • New York Resources: Review the Covenant House website, the Safe Horizon (2014) homeless youth facts page, and the Saulny (2012) newspaper article about homeless youth in New York. Initial Post: Review the resources provided above. Create an initial post that includes the two parts described below. Visual: Use a visual graphic of your choice such as a Venn diagram or chart using PowerPoint, SmartArt features in Microsoft Word, or Thinking maps® to compare and contrast the following five factors pertaining to homelessness: a. Statistical data about...
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...In the United States today, there are approximately 640,000 homeless people. When it comes to the topic of homelessness, there are so many differing opinions. Some people believe the homeless are a burden and that they should all be killed, while others believe that it is our God given duty to help these people and do all we can for them. Then there are some who could care less. Personally, I believe in service, so we should obviously help them all, but only to a certain extent. This is my belief because we shouldn’t have to waste all of our own hard earned money on them, but we should still help. The three ways we could all do in order to really help decrease the number of homeless people living in the streets would be to change society’s attitude about them, give to them, and push for change. If we all do these three things, we can really make a change. To begin, changing one’s attitude regarding homeless people is a huge step. An attitude is important in any setting. School, work, home, one’s attitude means everything. When someone has a bad attitude, he or she generally treat everyone else worse and thus, don’t work as hard. With a good positive attitude, people are usually much more generous, caring, and determined. When it comes to changing ones attitude, start with one’s self, then begin to help society change their attitude about homeless people. In the world today, people have catagorized homeless people as lazy, violent, crazy, addicted criminals who choose homelessness...
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...EFFECT PERSONAL SELLING HAS ON OUR OFFERING Name Instructor Institution Date Initial Budget Plan Covenant House just like any other charity organization continually wrestle with improving and maintaining their operations of ensuring that homeless youths are housed, fed, educated and socially protected from harm. Since Covenant House is a non-profit organization, the sources of revenue are purely from grants and donations. This calls for proper management of these funds as the expenditure tends to exceed revenue. Therefore, the organization constantly strives for sustainability in ensuring that the homeless youths are safe. The major expenditures for this organization is on costs of educating the youths, providing food and shelter to them, community participation and the general administration costs. This is why there is need to have a well-planned budget that focuses on the major roles, objectives and key goals of the organization. According to Covenant House plan, funds to run the organization will be received from the sale of the organization’s logo items, contribution from the general public, grants and donations from sponsors and well-wishers. The funds will account for payment of organization’s programs and missions across the United States and Central America. The initial budget planning for Covenant House involves the selection of a budget committee from volunteers. The volunteers have to be members of the organization and be familiar...
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...Critical Review of “Homelessness and Health in Adolescents” The research article “Homelessness and Health in Adolescents” brings attention to the problem of homeless youth in Canada and attempts to connect the challenges they experience to lessons for health care and governmental policy. Specifically, the authors set out to understand how adolescents experience homelessness and how gender is factor in that experience, homeless adolescent’s perceptions of health and healthcare accessibility, and how Canadian policy influences these perceptions and experiences. Although the purpose of the research is concisely described within the “Purpose of Study and Research Question” section of the article, I found it difficult to grasp the particular subject they were leading up to in the previous sections. When discussing “Background and Significance”, the authors touch the surface on a number of points regarding gender, homelessness, and healthcare, but they fail to describe any in depth significance why those certain points are important, or how they are related to this research study. I also found it peculiar that the authors cited only one source in this section on a point that is described as being “well documented”, such as the problem of homeless adolescents having a variety of health care concerns. The literature review of this article is well organized into subcategories and the majority of it is written in language that can be easily understood by non-academics. The overall...
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...ourselves. Should we spare a penny or two for them? The homeless veterans you see on the street did a favor for us by serving for our country and we should thank them and take two seconds out of our day to spare a few cents to make their day better. Homeless Veterans are common all around the United States. The percentage of homeless veterans go up when you're in a big city but have you thought of the percentage of homeless people in small towns. You seem them on street corners with their cardboard sign asking for help you look over and see them standing there. Take a second to help them. Even if it's a quarter it could make a...
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...mind of doing bad things that is harmful to the society. But because they did not have other options, and suffer under that extreme pressure (starving, suffer the cold, words attack by others, etc) for so long. Some of them become a criminal and lead to judge. So how could we reduce the number of homeless people? Is there anything we can do for this special group of people? To start with, do an all round research of the characteristics of people who are or could potentially become homeless. Determine which subsistence or help they really needed, what they are lack of. Only by knowing what those kinds of group of people indeed needs, we can offer the most effective helps. For example, a homeless person who is wandering all day around the street may not really cares about the food(although sometime they do),what they are deeply worrying about at first can be where to settle down tonight since they do not have a fixed place to stay. Apart from that they maybe are waiting for chances to change their destiny; these can be helped by the government in offering education or free job training. So they can earn money by themselves, but not waiting for the government to subsidize them. For people who are not able to work, like disabled people or people who have damage function in their mind. What the government needs to do is give them proper assistant by send professional people to help and extra substance. Definitely , only focusing on an proving substance is too narrow an approach and...
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...EFFECT PERSONAL SELLING HAS ON OUR OFFERING Name Instructor Institution Date Initial Budget Plan Covenant House just like any other charity organization continually wrestle with improving and maintaining their operations of ensuring that homeless youths are housed, fed, educated and socially protected from harm. Since Covenant House is a non-profit organization, the sources of revenue are purely from grants and donations. This calls for proper management of these funds as the expenditure tends to exceed revenue. Therefore, the organization constantly strives for sustainability in ensuring that the homeless youths are safe. The major expenditures for this organization is on costs of educating the youths, providing food and shelter to them, community participation and the general administration costs. This is why there is need to have a well-planned budget that focuses on the major roles, objectives and key goals of the organization. According to Covenant House plan, funds to run the organization will be received from the sale of the organization’s logo items, contribution from the general public, grants and donations from sponsors and well-wishers. The funds will account for payment of organization’s programs and missions across the United States and Central America. The initial budget planning for Covenant House involves the selection of a budget committee from volunteers. The volunteers have to be members of the organization and be familiar with the operations...
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...Street children are found in many parts of the Philippines. This interview was done specifically in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental. Street children can be seen in the Quezon park of this city. The ones interviewed are aged 7 and above. They are loitering in the park and on the street. They ask anyone that passes by for “Pinaskohan” especially now, since it’s already Christmas season. They tend to follow the person they asked for “Pinaskohan” until they either get something from that person or they find another person to beg for money. They are mostly seen as beggars on the street. When I asked them where they live, they would say anywhere or point to some place where they would spend the night. As to their answer, I can tell that they don’t have a permanent place of residence and would stay wherever they seem to go. Looking at them at such a young age, I wondered where their parents might be so I asked them where their parents are. They pointed to their mom, who was carrying a child and at the same time begging for food to eat. I then asked them where their father was. They simply replied my question with an “I don’t know.” or an “I don’t have one.” It seems that they were left behind and thus, their mom as a single mother. I also asked them how regularly do they eat and where do they get food to eat. They said that they dig in the trash bags, trash bins, or asks food from the people around. They also told me that it’s not everyday that that they can grab a bite. I can tell...
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