Save the Child and the comming generation

Save the child solution is the solution designed to improve the livelihood of children living in difficult life conditions, humiliated and segregated through giving them civic education and vocational trainings

The rapid increase of street children and violation of children in Tanzania especially in Iringa has been increasing drastically becoming the major challenge and counter back to the children within Iringa region and Tanzania at large. Most of the children are humiliated and violated by the people close to them and whom they trust. The people who are much trusted by the children become the front line at violating their rights making them to live miserable life with no comfort. Following this violation which include being raped, tortured and subjected to sexual violence, children tend to run away from their home places to the streets to search for happiness, justice, their rights, new company and their basic needs like food shelter and clothes. In turn they become forced to be beggars in the streets, thieves and participate in criminal activities like illegal drug selling, prostitution, theft, terrorism and poaching activities which highly endanger their life such as being imprisoned or being killed. More than thousands of children are affected within the country and lack proper place to stay. For example, In Iringa there are 1756 children who live miserable life with no support. Some of them participate in illegal activities while the rest are tortured and humiliated by their closely people such as parents, guardians or relatives. Failure to take care of these children lead to negative impacts to the community making more 5900 people to live in un-comfortable life due to the illegal deeds done by the street children. These children move from their home places due to many push factors. Poverty plays a major role, although other factors include: dumping of children, poor parenting, lack of education, lack of support from the community, parental deaths, parental neglect, family status, negative peer influence, development of science and technology, social humiliation and other social factors such as violence and abuse of children right. The street children contribute towards the increase of theft, prostitution, alcoholism, poaching and terrorism which endanger their life and the life of the community members around them. Some of them work in unconducive environments and they are vulnerable to defilement and others are subjected to the transmission of diseases. Major diseases affecting street children include malaria, fever, cold, rashes, cholera, HIV/AIDS, lung cancer, kidney failure, pressure and mental infections while others are affected by malnutrition diseases. Street children are maltreated, neglected some imprisoned or killed and used for rituals. The phenomenon of street children and the offspring of the modern urban environment represents one of humanity's most complex and serious challenges like suffering from depression, anxiety and trauma, which then may lead to substance abuse and a risk of suicide. The stigma and social exclusion faced by street-connected children has a negative impact on their mental well-being. The other effect of street children is that cause the increase of uneducated personnel within the country hence causing the death of new generation and leaders in the future time, contributing towards increase of poverty and decrease of man power.

Seeing many of the children suffering the team designed a specific solution to attend this inferior group in order to solve their crisis. The team came up with the following solutions; giving them the vocational skills like carpentry ICT and tailoring without any fee since the children do not have access of income to pay for themselves their own fees, teaching them about income generating activities such as entrepreneurship in order to increase their awareness and be able to manage their own life in the future time, provision of circle support and counselling in order to set their mindsets free from stress and other negative emotions, teaching them civic education so as they can be aware of their rights and responsibilities and they will be given assess to return in schools so as to increase their knowledge. Also we are going to link them with the CCDO maternity zero hospital and Children Care               Development Organization which deals with the same kind of problems we are working through hence these children will be provided with the special identity card in which they bare to show when attending the CCDO maternity zero hospital in order to be provided with free health care service and when they are in need of food they will show the identity card to the Children Care Development Organization officials responsible for child care and support in order to be provided with food support. The team will also participate in rising the awareness of the community members by giving them education towards the cause and effect of the street children, cooperating with the social welfare department and police gender desk in Iringa region posting articles which are against children violations, developing slogans and policies against children violations and conducting different seminars and campaigns concerning the wellbeing of children.

Before and after the independence of Tanzania, children have been regarded as the inferior group. Therefore, the solution is designed to serve the children especially those living in difficult life conditions. These solutions designed are to reach the voices of children in the streets whose cries are never answered, tiers are never wiped and the hope they wanted they never get it. The street children are the violated and unconsidered group of people within the community. The street children are not provided their civic rights, education food, food support, care, education, denial life sustainability, increasing in violence and lack of proper parental care  The solution will improve the life of children all around the region by giving them access to different skills like vocational skills awareness of their rights and responsibilities, increasing their chance to attend to schools and to solve the problem of food, health, violence and reduce the risk of endangering their life through criminal activities.

Most of the team members have the skills that enable them to solve the problem of this inferior group. The solutions provided are the roots of the skills the team members have. This is because most of the members came from the group of street children but lack enough they were taken out of the streets by some empathetic individuals and were taken to schools in order to increase their knowledge in different sectors they wanted to study through. Some of them served as the volunteers in different Non-Governmental Organizations dealing with the matters of vulnerable groups like women children and school dropout girls. This helped the team members to build awareness and increase their awareness in similar related cases and solving different community problems that hinder the community growth. Through the historical background of the team members we were able to know most of the difficulties and challenges that highly affect the children in the streets, the consequence of the street children and life difficulties they face. Therefore, the team knows the group they serve in details.

The information concerning the group we serve was obtaining from the Police Gender Desk, the Social Welfare Department of Iringa region, personal experience of the team members, through interviews with different people, literature reviews, mass media, religious institutes and the Non-Governmental Organizations dealing with the matters of the street children.

The solution seems to be more innovative because of the use of special identity cards which help the beneficiaries of the project to assess their needs easily. This method of assisting the community is not commonly known to many people. The use of seminars, slogans, campaigns and creation of articles to assist the beneficiaries to get their specific requirements at large scale.

Through these solutions we expect that most of the street children will be more sufficient and able to participate in the building of the nation and generating their income, most of the street children will be able to defend themselves through the bases of civic education, social support and counseling which they are provided, most of the street children will be taken back to school in order to increase their knowledge and become good national builders in the future time, they will no longer be the problem of food to them, there will be sure health support to the children with difficulties, children participation in risk situations like theft, alcoholism, prostitution, drug trafficking, poaching and terrorism will reduce, change of bad perception of the community members towards the street children will reduce at great rate, about 30 percent of the people within the country will be asses-sable to the education provided to defend the street children, there will be improved living standard of the street children and those who live miserable life and most of the children will be emphasized towards interdependence and self-development. All this achievements will be obtained through civic education provided to these children, seminars, slogans, polices articles and campaigns which will be conducted. Also through the vocational trainings which they will be provided which help the children to make different products and sell them to the community members in exchange for finance and through the identity cards provided they will be able to obtain free health service and food.

The solution use existing technology but in an improved manner such that it bring rise to the production of many products within the short period of time. In vocational trainings, those who deals with carpentry they will use the improved machines in designing furniture rather than the use of power by the use of combination machines which are rarely found in Tanzania, those who will be dealing with tailoring and knitting will use computers in designing their clothes and improved machines which will help them to fasten the production activity, those who will be studying ICT will be also taught online marketing in order to make marketing of the products produced by their fellows in other fields. The main things included in the solution are made from innovation and creativity to encourage many people in the community such as the use of songs, poems, riddles and proverbs that are taken from past cultural practices which were used in educating the community.

The solution aims at attending 350 children living in the street for six months and later spread the solution to reach about 900 children in different regions of the country where as there will be the groups created for this children who are trained and after they are well skilled they will be sent to educate other community members and assist other children who live in difficult life conditions and after two years the project will have reached about 1600 children within the country.

Towards attaining our goals we face various challenges which push us behind. This project is youth led in which most of them are from schools and have no sufficient income but are willing to assist other people especially the children living in difficult life conditions. The challenges we face include the financial problem to conduct our project. For the project to be successful for two years and six months it requires the budget of at least 45200 US Dollars. Also we lack enough tools to assist the children in getting education. We have few tools to use in operation of our activities. Currently we have one combination machines, one compressor, 26 claw hummers, 12 tape measures, 3 utility knives, 34 chisels, 10 levels, 47 screw drivers and one sliding bevel in carpentry, in tailoring we have 26 tailoring machines, 1 weaving machine and 1 iron box and in ICT we have 8 computers, 1 printer, 1 photocopy machine and one wireless internet cable. We therefore request assistance from any person or group who will fill concerned with the problem we are solving to donate anything that they are touched with and anything that they are able to assist us.

Current we are working with Children Care Development Organization which deals with the lives of the vulnerable groups like women, children, young girls, school dropout girls, youth and the people with disabilities. The organization has given us an offer of food and health services to the inferior group of children we are working to assist through the contract we signed with the organization. The organization chairperson also agreed with us to post the announcements and activities we are conducting through their website and their social media networks in order to reach many people in the world and to increase the spread of education to the community.  

The business model we are going to apply is business to consumer model in which we create products and sell them to our consumers. This will help to support the group we serve but also will help the population we serve to get some amount of money which will be essential for sustainability of their lives and reduce dependence rate. We will be providing the manufactured goods which will be sold to our customers, stationary service, marketing assistance and graphic service in which the clients will have to pay for the service. Also we will offer counseling service and assistance in which the clients will be given free of charge. All this services will be provided through education and trainings. The beneficiaries need this service in order to soften their minds so as to forget the past difficulties and focus to the future success ahead of them.

The financial path of the solution will be through selling of the designed products to the community. This will help us to get money for running our activities. For all products and services offered from carpentry, tailoring and ICT the clients will pay for them. Also our financial path will be through asking for donation and grants from individuals or groups which will help us to facilitate our programme for continuous period of time.