Mayor prods parents over street kids

By SANFROSSA MANYINDA
PARENTS must stop sending children to beg on the streets in order to reduce the number of streets kids in the Central Business District (CBD), Kitwe Mayor Christopher Kang’ombe has cautioned.
Mr Kang’ombe therefore said the problem was a social economic one that required input from different stakeholders.
Kitwe has continued to experience an increase in the number of street kids in the CBD, some of whom were g=harassing innocent residents.
The Mayor said there was need to deal with the main driver of the problem, in this case, the guardians, who were sending their kids to beg for money on the streets to earn a living.
He said that there was need to empower the parents and guardians of the children so that they could manage to make ends meet in their homes.
“Late last year, I predicted that there would be a huge number of street kids by end of 2020 in Kitwe if no measures are put in place by different stakeholders in the city,” he said.
Mr Kang’ombe said that his office initiated interventions to bring different stakeholders together to mobilise resources needed to relocate the over 150 kids from the streets. The street kids, he said, were to be sent to the identified children’s homes within the city.
The mayor further mobilised items such as food and any other essentials to help the local authority to achieve the objective.