Get children off the streets into school

Opinion / Zou Hanru

 Get children off the streets into school
By Zou Hanru (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-03-03 06:15

As dusk fell on the northern Chinese city of Zhengzhou, a 13-year-old boy
huddled against the February cold on a steam grate, waiting for another
aimless day to break. Without a place to call home, Zhou Ning made a bed
out of a cotton quilt spread out on the pavement in front of the Henan
provincial capital's railway station.

When the street crept back to life amid the first horns of passing
vehicles, Zhou got dressed, folded the quilt into a corner and relieved
himself a few yards away in full view of the public. He then dodged the
traffic and made his way towards a back alley foodstall for what he
called breakfast a bowl of watery soup spiced up with chilli and
soy-sauce and two deep-fried dough sticks, all at a cost of one yuan (12
US cents). Seemingly content with the meal, he swiftly fished out a pack
of cigarettes from his pocket, lit one and puffed his way into another
desperate, purposeless day.

This was a snapshot of a street child's life as captured by a CCTV news
programme on the plight of homeless children.

Zhou Ning is one of 150,000 homeless children roaming the country's urban
streets, according to a Ministry of Civil Affairs estimate.

Children leave their homes for different reasons. Poverty is presumably
the greatest single cause of homelessness, with children of rural and
migrant families escaping from the harsh conditions in the rural areas.
Others are survivors of dysfunctional families, domestic violence and
traumatic abuse.

Street children are exposed to violence, abuse, exploitation and poor
sanitation. Many resort to crime like Zhou Ning, who survives on petty
theft.

The traditional approach to managing street children has been to pick
them up, place them in a shelter for a while and then send them back to
their families. But many children end up on the streets again because
their families are devoid of either the financial ability or sense of
responsibility to care for them.

Assisted by the United Nations Children's Fund, China has devised a
comprehensive rehabilitation model for street children that comprises
drop-in centres, university student volunteers' out-reach programmes and
residential and foster care projects.

Zhengzhou is one of the first few Chinese cities to introduce foster care
families that house and feed street children and provide them with
counselling and healthcare.

But to enable these children to grow up to become contributing members of
society, we need to go beyond what we are now doing. The ultimate answer
to the social integration of street children lies in education.

Every child on the street has the same right to education as every other
school-age youth in this country. That is their fundamental right.

Given the developmental delays experienced by street children when
compared to their peers in a normal schooling system, we should strive
for an alternative regime that will create a nurturing environment in
which street children could receive their education along with
counselling, mental and physical health services and maybe even meals,
clothes and other supplies.

Such schools could help reduce the stigma of homelessness seen in
mainstream institutions, too, and prevent taunts and teasing from
classmates.

Education may have different purposes for different people. For street
children, the purpose of education should be to heal the wounds inflicted
by homelessness, give them the knowledge and skills they will need in
adulthood to earn a living, and instil in them moral and cultural
qualities that are essential for them to become contributing members of
society.

Email: zouhr@chinadaily.com.hk

(China Daily 03/03/2006 page4)

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