KP govt, private schools join hands to educate street children

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and private schools have joined hands to educate street children in the province and a situation analysis would be launched for the purpose in three districts as pilot project this month.
A meeting of the Private Schools Association and Social Welfare and Women Empowerment Department discussed modalities of the project.
Special Assistant to the Chief Minister on Social Welfare and Women Empowerment Dr Mehar Taj Roghani informed the meeting that the initiative would be part of the Zamoong Kor (Our home) project of the provincial government.
She told the meeting that in the first phase, the children would be removed from the streets and they would be given shelter in the Transit Shelter Home in Sidique Colony. In the later stage they would be shifted to Zamoong Kor facility at Nasapa Flats on the Charsadda Road.
Dr Roghani told the meeting that Zamoong Kor is the project of the provincial government where parentless, calamity-stricken and poor children would be given shelter, education and skill development facilities.
The project is being headed by Reham Khan as goodwill ambassador of the provincial government, she said and added that wife of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan would inaugurate Zamoong Kor today (Wednesday).
Turning to the street children project, Dr Mehar Taj told the meeting that situation analysis in Peshawar, Mardan and Abbottabad would be initiated later this month wherein data of the street children, who are in many cases bread-earners for own poor families, would be lined up.
The special assistant expressed the hope that the project would prove instrumental in eliminating child abuse on the streets in the province.
She also told the officials concerned to look into all aspects of the lives of the street children as most of them work on streets as small vendors and even beggars to feed their poor families.
The special assistant to the chief minister also hinted at the possibility of payment of some stipends to those street children who work to support their families.
Representatives of the Private Schools Association from Lakki Marwat, Karak, Malakand and Peshawar, led by Malik Yawar Naseer assured the government of all-out support to the initiative.
They said each school would accommodate five of the street children from the government-established shelter homes.