Ms Bibi Shadick, Minister within the Ministry of Labour, Human, Services and Social Security, told a press conference yesterday that the Task Force tried to: identify and list the reasons why children left their homes and stayed on the streets; whether the children who inhabited the streets went home at nights; whether there were street children who remained on the streets during the night as well as during the day.

“It discovered that several studies had been done to answer these questions and based on those studies, it was revealed that in addition to street children there were many other children who did not go to school principally because they had no birth certificates and were not being admitted into schools,” the Minister pointed out.

She added that the work of the Task Force, together with the findings of the anti-truancy campaign that was carried out by the Schools Welfare Division in collaboration with the Police and the Probation and Family Welfare Department of the Ministry, formed a significant part of the basis of the recommendations.

“Based on these recommendations, the Ministry of Education sent out a circular to all School Heads instructing them to admit children without a birth certificate and then inform the District Schools Welfare Officers, who are then tasked with filling out application forms for the children’s birth certificates,” she explained.

Minister Shadick further pointed out that these application forms are then forwarded to the General Registrar’s Office via the Ministry of Health. The birth certificates are then issued within two weeks.

“If it is found out that there was no entry of the child’s birth at the General Registrar’s Office, the Probation and Family Welfare Department of the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security facilitates late registration using an affidavit which was drafted for that purpose,” the Minister added.

According to her, these affidavits can only be accessed at the Ministry and are not available through the Schools Welfare Officers, who can make referrals to the Ministry.

Further, she stated that a recommendation has also been made and Cabinet has already agreed that funding will be made available for a School Feeding Programme, the provision of school uniforms to students in need, “since hunger and the non-availability of school uniforms were found to be two other reasons why children failed to attend school and so sometimes ended up on the streets”.

The Task Force also recommended parenting skills education, for which workshops have already been planned. These will be conducted countrywide, and will be funded by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF).

UNICEF will also fund the training of Community Volunteer Counsellors to give support and counselling to victims of domestic violence and child abuse, as well as to the perpetrators of such violence and abuse.

This programme will commence in Region Two (Pomeroon/Supenaam), and then in Region Five (Mahaica/Berbice) and Region Six (East Berbice/Corentyne) in collaboration with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

Minister Shadick indicated that her Ministry will conduct a pilot programme in one or two depressed communities in the city to supervise groups of children after school, who have problems with their schoolwork.

“This could encourage those children to stay in school and do better and so prevent them from dropping out because of poor performance,” she stated.

Minister Shadick declared that even though efforts are being made to keep children off the streets, these efforts are being severely undermined “by the fact that in some sections of the Guyanese society today, criminals are glorified by some sections of the media and revered by some presidential ‘;wannabees’;, and prison escapees are being dubbed ‘Freedom Fighters’.

“It is my dream that one day these defenders of the rights of criminals will wake up to the fact that their utterances are severely and negatively impacting on the lives of our young people and that they are therefore creating a monster which they themselves will not be able to control as was seen as recently as last Friday during a PNC/R-sponsored march,” the Minister asserted.