The workshop brought together NGOs and agencies dealing with people living on streets
The Catholic Action for Street Children (CAS) in collaboration with other NGO’s and state agencies have kick started a four day capacity building for some agencies and Non-Governmental organizations dealing with persons living on streets.
The NGO’s, Catholic Action for Street Children, Chance for children, African movement for working children and youth, Assemblies of God Care and the Department of Social Welfare have come together to deliberate on issues concerning the betterment of the life of street children.
The workshop which has 26 participants, drawn from the Accra metropolitan district, Zone ‘A’ and the Ada West districts opened in Accra on May 22, 2017 at the Social Centre of the Osu children’s home.
Speaking in an interview after day 1 of the training, the head of Programs at the Catholic Action for Street Children, Mr. Paul Avevor said, the Capacity building workshop is expedient for all organizations and agencies who have taken it upon themselves to work with people on the street.
He said the participating organizations will not only get the opportunity to share ideas and experiences but will also take into account all that they will learn at the training in their work.
“We are not only here to share ideas and experiences, at the end of the training session, we are hoping that all participants will implement whatever they learn from this training. We are looking at how street children can benefit from our various interventions so we are bringing all stake holders together to share ideas and to teach others on how to befriend children in trying to help them. By the end of the training session we hope that they will take the knowledge back to the various works places to make work more effective” Mr. Avevor said
For his part, the facilitator of the workshop Mr. Tijani Mamoud, who happens to be a global trainer of persons working with street children, said the participants will be taken through training on reasons why they are doing what they do as street workers and why street children should merit their attention and resources, understanding the individuality of street children, street mapping. Thus, a day out to observe and have a feel of what it means to be on the field trying to locate street children and how to engage the children in a manner that makes them comfortable to share information about themselves.
Mr. Mamoud said the aim of his organization (Street Invest) is to have trust worthy adults who will direct the lives of vulnerable street children. He said children on the street equally have potentials and rights that need to be harnessed and protected.
“We are holding training on working with street children. This training is what we term, introduction to street work. This is one of the modules of series of modules developed by a UK based organization called Street Invest. This organization seeks to impact positively on people living on streets especially children. We are looking for as many as possible street workers and also the effectiveness of the work they do in the lives of these children. Our mission is to have a trust worthy adult in the life of every street child. We at street invest believe that street children are like other children who needs adults in their lives to become responsible people in the near future,” he said.
Mr. Mamoud further said working with street children is very challenging. He however was quick to add that how difficult it gets largely depends on the approach one adopts. He urged street workers to be weary of risk control measures in their daily activities. The training will close on Friday 26 May 2017.
