Strategies Need Strengthening

For any visitor coming into Yaounde, what strikes first is the overly presence of what is generally referred to today as street children.

They are found at virtually every important roundabout in the city centre where they congregate in the hope of finding the comfortable live which caused their being in Yaounde, in the first place. Many years ago, André Marie Talla sang his famous "Je vais à Yaoundé", another way of saying that the national capital provides all the solutions to the various difficulties encountered by ordinary citizens in the back country.

One therefore understands that truck or train loads of youths come into the national capital virtually every other day to bloat the already existing army of unemployed youths in search of jobs or the simple comfort of water or electricity so rare in village communities, but which many of them hope to find in the city as a means of making their lives more amenable; It is difficult to fathom the multifarious social, economic and even political problems created by this situation.

Government policy, through the Ministry of Social Affairs, has attempted, in many ways, to manage the situation; but strategies so far used have either been too timid to address a problem definitely bigger than the ministry perceives it or simply un-adapted to the growing phenomenon. Most often, the ministry has concentrated on re-education, ending up in sending back those they claim to have re-educated to their villages. But quite often, these "re-educated" children are back on the journey to Yaounde.

There is definitely a problem of funding. Counseling, amidst numerous needs of these children, does not seem to be the most urgent thing they need. Rather, a daily square meal or regular medical attention when need arises, are likely to retain the child's attention. A hackneyed dictum talks of a hungry man being an angry man and one quickly understands the resistance shown by these youths to some of the initiatives taken by the Ministry in their favour. It is therefore time to review existing strategies so as to incorporate all those actions that tend to attract them... otherwise, for a long time they will continue to be on the streets.