A Study of Shelters for Street Children from an Organizational ...

Staff expressed that children should be kept busy at all times till bedtime and the
shelters should see to it that that happens. They argued that children became
mischievous when idle and they needed re-orientation to move away from street life
culture. Shelter's physical structures needed maintenance continuously and in the
views of staff it was the duty of government or local authorities to help keep shelters in
good condition. They argued that an alternative would be the development of skills
training programs and learning would be part of repairing and maintaining shelters and
any other broken facilities. Skills like masonry, carpentry, or electrical training would be
utilized effectively. Shelters could become self-sufficient in the supply of basic goods
and maintenance through the use of human resource of children while learning skills
that would empower them for jobs and labour markets in the future.
4.4.2 Shelter Objectives
Staff participants were not very particular with the objectives of the shelters. In their
view, intervention strategies were necessary because life on the street was dangerous
for children. Consequently, action was necessary to remove children from the streets
and make sure that they were at school and where it was not possible they be placed
in some informal learning. Children should never be on the streets for whatever reason.
In this regard, shelters were doing a good job.
One participant summed up staff views and stated,
Unless a form of intervention is done, children living and/or working on the
streets will become hardcore criminals making the streets very unsafe even for
the children themselves. Just don't know what makes children ran from home
into the streets. Perhaps it is better to intervene in the family first and following
that intervene with the children. But already children are on the streets. Maybe
intervene in both situations. Yet the possibility is difficult to come by because of
funds (translated).
However, they observed that when life in the shelters is so organized and services are
of high quality that would create some dependency, attract more children on the streets
in order that they also could be placed in shelters to receive the good and high quality
services. In this context, staff were weary and ambivalent whether to improve shelters
services much more than they were. They argued that what could be done is to expand
intervention programs and include programs which would stabilize families and
communities from where children came from before and after children were on the
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