Our future is on the streets & the challenge confronts us

LAPIEH LANDU

IT COULD BE A SIGHT FOR SORE EYES but also a cry for immediate response: the cosmic amount of youths, let alone children, begging and making ends meet through directing traffic, caretaking parked vehicles and lending a helping hand….

A recent encounter with one little boy, who looked to be less than eight years old, was an experience that had me contemplating. The image he portrayed was of a mature self, a mouthful of betelnut and a lighted cigarette.

But it was an occurrence that is becoming all too familiar with more and more children taking up the same role. Itinerant begging on the street has become a way of life for these distressed children.

It brings about a string of questions. Why are these children on the streets? Where are their parents? Are they aware their children are doing these things? What is the city council doing? Why is this issue being ignored?

It seems that the problem of child begging is present in many underdeveloped countries. There are children of all ages, as young as four, begging on our streets. Are we all just plain ignorant about this or rather not meddle with it. But it is an immediate concern for our whole nation.

“If a child is given love, he becomes loving,” says Dr Joyce Brothers. “If he's helped when he needs help, he becomes helpful. And if he has been truly valued at home ... he grows up secure enough to look beyond himself to the welfare of others.”

Our future, the future of Papua New Guinea, is these children. While the ones more likely to run the country are in the academic institutions across the nation, those that loaf on the streets are equally as important.

They make up a larger population most likely to become vendors, bus drivers, rangers and bandits. If we wish to see the fruits of the seeds we plant, we have to weed and prune and nurture. If we become oblivious to them, they become barren and wild.

These children need to be given a sense of hope and a sense of dignity - a chance. There need to be lured into education and self help. Our country must find a way to alleviating poverty and hopelessness.

Countries like Malawi have laws that ban street begging, especially child begging, as a way of protecting and helping children. Why couldn’t we do the same? Why aren’t there laws in place to eradicate an issue that has deteriorated the minds of our children?

Street begging leads to a sense of dependency and low self esteem that lead these children to involve themselves in vicious doings such as car theft, pick pocketing, and even murder.

It should be a social obligation for responsible intellectuals to correct this problem. The working class people who grace the paths of Douglas Street, downtown and other commercial areas where these child beggars populate should not turn a blind eye and enthusiastically encourage them, instead hold back the loose change and save their lives. As the saying goes, do not give a man a fish; teach him how to fish.

Child beggar rehabilitation is necessary and important if we are genuinely concerned about the future of our children and of this nation.

I believe that the way forward is to engage those NGO which deal with such issues as they have an understanding and effective approaches.

The government should work with these NGOs in ensuring efficient funding towards rehabilitating our children, getting them off the streets and giving them a life-long skill that will enable them to see that they are important aspects towards a brighter future and our agents of change.

Comments

[B Bina]

Street kids... I'm not sure what the Lukautim Pikinini Act says but the old Child Welfare Act had a section that says children can become wards of the state if they can prove that they are destitute.

Using a provision similar to this if there is any in the LPA and a bit of innovation and thinking outside the box, the Ministry of Community Development should be able to attend to this situation.

In this year 2013 of free education, there are still street kids out there on the streets doing all types of things. What is it, dont they have a home, cant they get a decent meal to stay in school.

These are resultant questions. The end result may be that we already are making out our new breed of vagabonds and rascals.

Yeah we need more discussion and help.

[Michael Dom]

Jacobeth, well done on your commentary on this very important issue in PNG.

While I can appreciate your point of view, that life in the village is far better for less advantaged migrants to the city, I'm not convinced that your suggestion that they should return.

There are reasons why people migrate to cities. It's a worldwide phenomenon, and no unique event in mankind's history either.

What need need to appreciate, as a nation, and particularly the government of the day, is the 'push and pull factors' that cause people to move from villages to cities.

It is certain that there are social and economic mitigating factors, and despite our personal perspectives, they are real to the people feeling them.

A little more sensitivity and understanding is required before we can address rural-urban drift in a postive manner.

At the opposite end of the scale there are those city folk who who return to the villages, after a lifetime in the away, to find themselves less welcome.

What then do we say to them, to 'go back to the city'?

Jacobeth, take a look at Leonard Fong ROka's recent article about a village in Madang; http://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2013/03/worst-people-worst-places-a-walk-into-dependency.html

Try to link these two articles together and perhaps develop an essay about your thoughts.

One of the key ways that young Papua New Guineans can directly address the development agenda facing their country and contribute to nation building is by writing about it.

However, this essay writing must be well reasoned, it must be founded on solid evidence and verifiable facts and be definitive of the perspective the arguments are made from - we cannot continue to paint ourselves with a broad brush.

If we want to help Papua New Guinea as writer's, then we must fine tune our thinking.

[Steve Gallagher Darong]

This country is free, we own the land and resources but yet some of us are begging and selling betulnuts in streets. Its very funny and nonsense to see people doing this.

Do these people came from overseas, are they aileans. Why not go back to their villages and work in the garden to earn a living rather than wondering the street hopping for luck.

Can some body tell us where these children came from, do they have parents? Its very funny to do this in PNG, and nation where we onw resurces.

[Jocabeth Yuasi]

We Papua New Guineans are truly blessed with the availability of resources. However, we are very, very lazy.

We expect or depend on others to do things for us. Getting a job isn't the only way to earn an income. If we work the land or do other things we will still earn money. Most poeple go to urban areas to look for a job.

It is sad but also annoying to see children begging on the streets. The sad thing is they are innocent, we cannot blame them for what they are doing. They do this because they know that's the only mean to survive in the city.

Who should we blame? What makes me annoyed is their parents have villages they come from, why not go back to the village? There is a better life in the village. The other thing that makes me angry is some parents send their children to beg.

What the government should do is do away with settlements. Unemployed people should go back to the village and start a life there.

We have everything in the village, what more could one ask for? In that way, there won't be any children begging on the street.

[Lapieh Landu]

I couldn't agree with you more Barbara.

[Mrs Barbara Short]

I hope that the Children's University of Music and Art (CUMA) is still going.

I hope some of the newly elected politicians will want to get involved with trying to solve this problem.

I hope the churches will be doing something too. In the olden days in England they ran Sabbath Schools on Sundays in the church halls where they taught these children how to read and write and taught them about "right and wrong" - a basic education in morals.

I hope the NGOs will also get involved. In our past we have seen the good work of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, the Police Boys' Clubs, the Boy's and Girl's Brigades, and numerous other organisations set up to help these unfortunate children.

I remember when I was teaching at Keravat National High School I found that only 30% of Primary School leavers were able to continue on at high school so we started a Community School for these Primary School Leavers at Napapar.

A group of sixth form girls and some teachers acted as teachers and two afternoons a week for two hours, taught them English, General Studies, Sewing, Cooking and Health and they took part in sporting activities and I showed them movies.

We sold lots of laplap and made a small profit which we used to buy sewing machines for the Community School.

I think ALL educated people in PNG must wake up to the fact that they are privileged and DO SOMETHING to help those who are not.

"There but for the grace of God, go I."