As children roam the streets in search of shelter, food and other basic needs, their future hangs in the balance. Understanding the plight of street children highlights the need for immediate design and implementation of intervention strategies to prevent children from living on the streets and assist those who have become street children.

Street children have been identified by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as children in difficult circumstances and their rights and welfare remain a growing concern to both national and international bodies. The existing estimates by UNICEF suggested that there are tens of millions of street-based children, and this number continues to rise in low- and middle-income countries because of increased urbanisation, health challenges of parents, the HIV epidemic, migration and global population growth.

 

A street child is a young person, under the age of fifteen, who lives and sleeps on the streets, whose family ties are broken and who can't or won't return home. Some end up sleeping in the streets with their poor parents because they have no home nor money to afford to take care of them and quite often they are left with no choice but to either become beggars or criminals. Most often street children live in the streets without their families as is rampant in Maroua, Douala and many other towns and regions in Cameroon. Each child has to learn how to survive alone since no adult takes responsibility for them. Often they are very young and completely ignored by their families. These children don't like to be called "street children", but they have no option but bear the worry of some name tag as they struggle to survive. These great destinies are always lacking education, love, proper care and medical attention. Zion A Happy Home Foundation believes that if we can absorb off the streets these children and provide them with what they lack, then our society is guaranteed a responsible young generation to lead tomorrow. We urge you to join us to take collective meaningful action to meet the needs of these under-resourced children.