Pedagogy

Street children according to Boyden and Berry (2004), is a word or name that refers to kids who survive on the road or avenues of a city. They are mostly destitute and underprivileged of family unit care and safety. Majority of these kids on the avenues are flanked by the period of about 5 to 17 years old, and their populace ranges differently between cities and towns. In these streets, these kids are involved in some sort of money-making activities varying from petitioning to trading. Some go back to their dwellings at the close of the daylight hours and add or supplement their take-home payments to their folks. Some may perhaps attend education training centres, and hang on to a sense of fitting into a family. For that reason of financial frailty of the family unit, these kids could in the long run decide on leading a lasting living on the streets.

Children end up in the streets for various reasons. According to Boyden and Berry (2004), these reasons are exceptional to individual circumstances. Among the reasons or factors that contribute to children becoming street kids is the hard economic conditions and poverty. Parents who are poor and do not have stable source of income may end up neglecting their children and become alcoholics. Some may even abandon the kids, who will be left to feed for themselves, while some will even send their children to the streets to beg. Imprisoned parents and abusive parents in terms of verbally, sexually and physically also contribute to this scenario. Breakdown of the family, separation or divorce, and one or both parents dying due to various reasons e.g. HIV and AIDS, natural and man made disasters, migration, wars and conflicts, rejection and mistreatment by adults are some of the factors that give rise to this phenomenon of street children.