Ghana launches project to get people off streets

by Alex Osei-Boateng

ACCRA, May 22 (Xinhua) -- The Ghanaian government on Tuesday reiterated its quest to rid the country's streets of hawkers and beggars.

To that end, it launched an initiative dubbed "Operation Get off the Streets for a Better Life" aimed at reducing the phenomenon of people living on the streets.

The main objective of the project is to provide a better alternative to street life and integrate people back into families and communities, said the minister of gender, children and social protection, Otiko Afisah Djaba.

The target group includes hawkers, children beggars and those contracted to push disabled people in wheelchairs to ask for alms, persons with disabilities, families in the streets and displaced persons, the minister said.

The five-year program is expected to get over 6,000 children off the streets across the country. So far, about 4,098 children have been registered under the scheme.

Addressing the media in Accra, Djaba appealed to corporate organizations to support the government's initiative to get children off the streets.

"If your child is on the streets, parent, please look for that child; child, if you have run away from home, go back home; the streets are not safe," Djaba said. Enditem