The Impact of Institutionalization of Street children: A Case Study of Nairobi County.

Abstract

The number of street children in Kenya keep on burgeoning day in out. This happens despite the fact that there are many programmes that have been put in place to curb the street children phenomenon. This initiatives have been constituted by the government, private. Nairobi is the capital city of the Republic of Kenya. Statistics have it that the population of street children in Nairobi alone is estimated at 500,000. This number keeps on burgeoning everyday (Shashi, 2005). Is it that the impact of the concerted effort is not effective at all? Or is it that the work of the organizations is only but partial? Why do children continue pouring into the streets despite the work of charity? There is a big problem, because every day you wake up, you encounter hundreds of street children moving and eking a living up and down the streets of Nairobi. This study found out that institutionalization used alone will not curb street children in Nairobi County. Institutionalization is only addressing the eruptions, the real volcano keep on boiling and producing more eruptions. The argument in this paper is for how long are we going to keep addressing the eruptions (street children) when the volcano continues to fuelled by the ingredients like poverty, diseases, and mushrooming slums? This paper explains why interventions in place to curb street children are not working in Kenya.

Key Words: Street Children, Institutionalization, Education, Rehabilitation, Pedagogy, Volcano.