An Assessment of the Contribution of Rwanda Red Cross to Street Children

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the program of activities of the Rwanda Red Cross Kigali drop-in centre and to examine how they contribute to the socio-economic reintegration of street children in and around Kigali. The target population of the study was the 231 street children that frequent the centre. Data was also collected from employees of the Kigali drop-in centre and parents of the street children under study. The tools used in the data collection were the questionnaire, observation and interviews. Analysis of the data collected showed that the activities of the Kigali drop-in centre contributed a lot to the improvement of the quality of life of the street children through promoting their reintegration into the society. The findings from the study also revealed some difficulties of the Kigali drop-in centre such as the difficulty of putting together the needs of the children with different backgrounds, lack of adequate methodology in the supervision of the children and lack of good collaboration between different actors (parents, centre, administrative authorities and heads of school establishments). The Kigali drop-in centre has adopted such strategies as regular meetings with parents, children and local authorities as well as training of its personnel to overcome some of the difficulties.