Social Welfare Department intensifies family-based care

The Department of Social Welfare has initiated a special project to identify children who are in need of care and protection, especially those who have been loitering in the streets and have been deprived of their right to education.

The project, titled "The Street to School Project," seeks to take children off the streets and put them in the classroom where they will be taught some basic numeracy and literacy skills.

  Pilot phase

Under the pilot phase of the project, which will later be extended to other parts of the country, 147 children engaged in child labour at the canoe Fishing Harbour at Tema Manhean have been rescued.

Out of that number, 86 (61 males and 25 females) were school dropouts. One child has been put in a shelter at Osu and another pregnant one will also be placed in a shelter for protection. Four of the children were also reunited with their families.

These children were either found selling at the fishing harbour, helping fishermen and fishmongers or pushing trucks.

Addressing a sensitisation programme for family-based care at Tema Manhean, the acting Director of the Social Welfare of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mrs Comfort Asare, expressed appreciation to the chiefs and people of Tema for accepting to be part of the programme aimed at strengthening family bonds.

She disclosed that last year, the Department of Social Welfare recorded 4,030 maintenance cases across the country.

Mrs Asare said the huge number of cases showed that a lot of children had been grappling with neglect and its attendant challenges.

"Children who live and spend most of their lives in the streets are exposed to social vices that threaten the stability and development of the country," she said.

 Causes of neglect

Mrs Asare identified poor parental care, poverty, negligence and ignorance as some of the causes of child neglect and said the Department of Social Welfare intended to work with parents and family members to get all children back to the classroom.

Additionally, the department will link extremely poor families to pro-poor interventions. She, however, warned that the department would in the future prosecute families which received support and still neglected their children.

  Extended family system

The Deputy Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mr John Alexander Ackon, called on the traditional authorities to show active interest and participate in the project.

He bemoaned the situation where as a result of socio-economic factors, the age-old traditional extended family system was being eroded, with more people becoming more concerned with their immediate families, thus neglecting other children in the society.

He said the family-based policy was a good intervention to integrate the vulnerable and marginalised back into the society.

The Paramount Chief of Tema, Nii Adjei Krakue II, urged parents, especially mothers, to take keen interest in the programme and participate fully in it to enable them to save the future of their children.