Assessing effectiveness of interventions for the street children problem in Tanzania: a case Study of Rehabilitation Centres in Dar es Salaam. Available at http://41.86.178.3/internetserver3.1.2/detail.aspx?parentpriref=

In recent years there have been an increasing number of street and vulnerable children. Various measures have been used to solve the problem of street children. In Tanzania rehabilitation centres are the commonly measure that are used to reduce the increase of street children. In the light of this reality, this study investigated the effectiveness of rehabilitation centres aiming at finding out whether the services provided produced future self-reliant members of the society. The study investigated effectiveness based on the United Nation Convention of Child Rights of 1985 and Millennium Development Goals. The Study involved 245 respondents in the three municipalities of Dar es Salaam namely Kinondoni, Ilala and Temeke. The study involved children of 14 years of age and above living in rehabilitation centres in the city of Dar es Salaam and 13 centres were selected for this study. Information was obtained through questionnaires, interviews and documentary reviews which were finally subjected to both quantitative and qualitative presentation and analysis. The findings of this study, on the one hand, revealed that the majority of children living in rehabilitation centres were school dropouts and had at least one parent alive. Effectiveness of rehabilitation centres included provision of opportunities for children to resume their schooling and enroll those who had not been in school before. Other achievement included to provide life skills for vulnerable children so as to help them become self-reliant. The findings of this study, on the other hand, found that the rehabilitation centres were facing a number of challenges in accomplishing their programs. Among the challenges included poor feeding, poor shelter facilities, sub-standard life skills and poor access to higher education. The most leading challenge was the lack of permanent source of income, which acted as obstacles for quality services in most rehabilitation centres. In view of the above findings, it was concluded that rehabilitation centres are good measures in solving the problem of street children but they should be monitored closely and work hand in hand with the government. Family reunification and family strengthening should be emphasized to reduce institutional care. Community based care should be emphasized to allow children enjoy the right of growing in the family setting.