MEETING WITH SELECTED STAKEHOLDERS TO FINALIZE FIVE (5) YEAR PLAN ON STREET CONNECTED PEOPLE

The Department of Social Welfare under the auspices of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection held a Stakeholders meeting to finalize the five (5) year strategic plan on street-connected people on June 14, 2022.
The Director for the Department of Social Welfare, Rev. Dr. Mrs. Comfort Asare on behalf of the Ministry welcomed participants and admonished them to give out their maximum support and inputs.
The purpose of the meeting was to address the situation of street-connected children in Ghana. The meeting kick started with a presentation from Dr. Ernestina Tetteh from the Center for Social Policy Studies at the University of Ghana.
Her presentation covered definitions of steet-connected children; public assumption of street children; some efforts made both at the international and national levels; the 5-year Strategic Plan on street-connected people; some social intervention programmes by government such as National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), School Feeding Programme amongst others.
Dr. Tetteh indicated that the Plan has 10 strategic objectives and these include; a nation-wide data collection on children in street situation, reduction of barriers to accessing essential services by street-connected children; delivery of on-going services and pathways to permanency; development of a policy and implementation plan for street-connected children; development of guidelines for addressing the issues of street-connected children of foreign nationality; coordination of stakeholder engagement and collaboration; building child-sensitive communities; sensitization of citizens and organizations on street-connected children; research, monitoring and evaluation of all outcomes for the 5 year strategic plan and resource mobilization.
After the presentation, deliberations were done and inputs were made into the Plan. Rev. Dr. Mrs. Comfort Asare in the end expressed the Ministry’s appreciation to participants for their time and support.