Succour has come the way of dozens of street kids in Calabar as a non-governmental organisation, Street Priests, stepped up efforts to assist them.
Niger Delta Trust reports that an increasing number of children are now seen in Calabar rummaging at dump sites, streets and public squares without food and care.
The street kids, popularly called Skolombo children, are also seen often congregating at the abandoned Government Zoo Garden on Mary Slessor Road and in the State Housing Estate, scavenging for remnants of foods in wastes bins.
The assistance came at an auspicious time as the nation fights the COVID-19 pandemic that has forced governments to impose various restrictions on movements.
The children, some of whom said they did not even know any member of their families, had found themselves in a precarious situation until the NGO’s intervention.
Members of the NGO, Street Priests, mostly made up of youths, give humanitarian services to the children, including meals everyday.
The Community Director of the organisation, Godwin Ohara, said the vision of the founder of the NGO, Mr. James Okina, was to turn the children’s potentials into asset for the society they live in.
Even before the advent of COVID-19 they have been collected together on a daily basis and fed decent meals.
The children were full of praise for the NGO.
Eight-year-old Donald Bassey, who could not tell who his parents or relations are, said he survived by selling scraps. He tearfully told our reporter how happy he was with the assistance.
He said: “Street Priests are the only people that remember us by giving us good care, food and clothes.
“I don’t have parents; my only relative is in Lagos. These people bring food to us every day and since the coronavirus, they have been giving us soap, sponge and pay for us take our bath every day.”
Another of the kids, David Umoh, barely 12 years old said, “I have been on the streets since 2011 because my father did not enroll me in school. I feel comfortable here in the street.
“I scavenge for irons and sell to survive. Apart from that, this people give us food every day while another man too, gives us three times in a week.”
A child expert and Secretary of the International Children Fellowship based in Calabar, Engr Ikechukwu Nweze, commended the humanitarian gesture of the group but called on the state government to issue a deliberate policy on child welfare which must ensure child security.
“It is important for governments to enact beneficial child welfare policy to guarantee their safety and feeding, so that the children won’t grow into hardened criminals.”
An official of the state social welfare department, Stella Bassey, said government regularly collects the street kids but in no time they would find their way back into the streets.
