Gov't to repatriate street children from Accra

The government is collaborating with non-governmental organisations to repatriate street children from Accra to their various communities for training to enable them to acquire employable skills.

Mrs Cecilia Bannerman, Minister for Manpower Development and Employment, said this at Pong-Tamale in the Savelugu-Nanton District in the Northern Region on Monday.

She said out of 1,500 street children from the northern part of the country that were registered by the ministry, the first batch of 500 of would be repatriated this year.

Mrs Bannerman was on an inspection tour of facilities and institutions, as well as projects funded by the United Nations Children's Fund for the training of street children in the Northern Region.

She said the street children and people with disability would be made to acquire skills to enable them contribute to national development.

The tour took the Minister to the Tamale Rehabilitation Centre, Tamale Children's Home and the Opportunities Industrialisation Centre in the Tolon/Kumbungu District, where some of the street children would be screened and counselled before their training.

She also visited the Logshegu Pottery and Ceramics Training Centre near Kumbungu and the Pong-Tamale Vocational Institute in the Savelugu-Nanton District.

Most of the training institutions under the ministry are in deplorable condition and needed immediate rehabilitation.

At the Tamale Children's Home and the Rehabilitation Centre, the structures there were dilapidated, posing a danger to the inmates.

The Pong-Tamale Vocational Training Institute had uncompleted structures while the existing ones were in deplorable state.

The students have no access to potable water and have resorted to drinking from water collected from an uncompleted manhole in the institute.