There is no budget for street children - Nsingo
By Larry Moonze THERE is no budget line for the rehabilitation of street children, community development minister Marina Nsingo has said. Speaking before the parliamentary committee on health, Nsingo said her ministry didn't even have an estimated cost of how much it would involve to rehabilitate the more than 75,000 children on the streets. "We have a crisis and we have to do something about it. It's not an easy thing, we need the involvement of everybody including the Church, nongovernmental organisations, police victim support unit and other stakeholders," she said. Nsingo said a stakeholders' meeting with relevant government ministries such as the ministries of education, home affairs, community development and health, donors, the Church and NGOs would be held in a bid to find long-term solutions to the problem. "We shall use the outcome of this meeting to lobby for funds from the treasury and cooperating partners such as UNICEF. The meeting would also come up with estimates of how much will be required to kick-start the programme," she said. Nsingo said in 1999 street kids were rounded up but in no time they were back on streets because government did not prepare adequately for them. She said currently government was looking at upgrading the Zambia National Service (ZNS) disused camp in Kitwe for skills training to street kids above the age of 16. "We have not started any work on the Kitwe camp yet because of budgetary constraints but our intention is to use all ZNS camps currently not in use for carpentry, brick-making and basic education," she said. Nsingo said the Kitwe ZNS camp had the capacity to accommodate 2,000 children at once. She said the rehabilitation or repatriation of street children required committing resources for a long period as the benefit would not be seen overnight.