Investigating The Effectiveness Of Rehabilitation Programmes Of Street Girls And Boys In Nyeri Municipality, Nyeri County, Kenya.

ABSTRACT

In Kenya, the problem of children living on the streets has long been regarded a perennial problem of the urban areas of the country, often viewed with disdain by most people in the society due to the menacing behaviour of the children. The number of these children has been increasing at an alarming rate prompting the Kenya government, NGOs, churches and private sectors to set up rehabilitation centres for the children living on the streets and their families. Based on this, the study sought to investigate the effectiveness of rehabilitation programmes of street boys and girls in Nyeri Municipality. The objectives of the study were to establish existing programmes for the rehabilitation of girls and boys in selected rehabilitation centers, assess the effectiveness of rehabilitation programmes offered to boys and girls in selected rehabilitation centers, investigate the challenges encountered in rehabilitating boys and girls as well as challenges they faced during rehabilitation. The study further sought to identify strategies to improve the rehabilitation programmes. The study was guided by structural empowerment theory fronted by Kanter (1993). The study used descriptive survey design. The population of the study comprised rehabilitation centres‘ coordinators, programmes heads, District Children Officer (DCO), social workers and boys and girls in rehabilitation centers in Nyeri Municipality. Selected respondents included 3 coordinators of rehabilitation centres, 1 District Children Officer (DCO), 18 programmes heads and 6 social workers all selected through purposive sampling. 47 children in the rehabilitation centers in the area of the study were selected through simple random sampling. Data was collected using interview schedules for centres‘ coordinators and DCO; questionnaires for programmes heads and social workers and Focus Group Discussion guides for the children. Data was analyzed quantitatively using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) while qualitative data was analyzed thematically ad interpreted in context. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages were used to analyze various variables. The findings of the study revealed that rehabilitation programmes mainly included formal education, guidance and counselling as well as vocational programmes. However, there were gender disparities in the programmes offered in that girls‘ programmes were fewer compared to those offered to boys. In addition to the formal programmes, children were exposed to games and Sports for the development of different talents as well as for entertainment. The study also established that programmes were affected by various challenges such as lack of enough funds and community support, inadequate Government support and poor working environment, inadequate staff while others lacked skills thus affecting performance of the programmes negatively. Lack of facilities such as tools and equipments as well as inadequate rooms for the programmes also affected the effectiveness of the programmes. In addition, limited resources such as food resulted to girls not getting enough since they could not manage to compete with boys for the same. The study however concluded that rehabilitation programmes if well carried out can go a long way in rehabilitating children living on the street since their attitudes towards the programmes was positive. The study recommends the need for the staff to be trained in their various fields, upgrading of rehabilitation programmes as well as establishing more interventions for girls. Further, more funds should be availed to the rehabilitation centers by the County Government and other stake holders.