God Cares organisation gets 150 Mzuzu street children back to school
About 150 children who have been roaming the streets of Mzuzu have been taken off the streets and sent back to school, thanks to a local non-governmental organisation (NGO) God Cares.
In an interview with Nyasa Times in Mzuzu on Wednesday, God Cares project officer, Blesco Nyawungulu, said the kids are, so far, being provided with school fees and other essentials.
Nyawungulu said after a survey they conducted in 2016-2017, they found out that many children were just roaming about the streets and had been reduced to mere street beggars.
“The thing is most of them went into begging because their parents’ financial standing could not support them to be in school.
“As such, we sourced funds to bail out these kids from the streets with fees and writing materials as well as monitoring their progress in class,” said Nyawungulu.
However, Nyaungulu called for government to put intensive measures to arrest the street-kid challenge saying a lot needs to be done.
“Our project is just a drop in the ocean, 150 are rescued out of 362 in the Chibavi location only, what about the whole city,” said Nyawungulu.
In her remarks, Mzuzu City Council (MCC) monitoring and evaluation officer, Monica Malota, commended God Cares for their support.
“We have many NGOs in Mzuzu, but once they get approval on what they want to do in the city, they don’t come back to report to the council.
“NGOs add up on what government is implementing on the ground and what God Cares has done is very commendable as we will know where to go to curb the street kids challenge in our city,” said Malota.
According to God Cares, the project in Mzuzu is being implemented with a K14 million financial grant from Egmond Trust of England.
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