HUYE - An official from Ministry of gender and family promotion has called for collaboration from local leaders in finding a lasting solution to the problem of street children that has for long dogged the district.

Adeline Kayiranga made the appeal last Friday during  a one day meeting with Cell Executive Secretaries and other local officials.

The official acknowledged that the move to work with top district authorities in the past has not been successful.

"We have now adopted a new approach of working with local leaders down the ladder in which we are now closely working with cell level leaders who are themselves directly able to  work closely with families and can make the necessary follow up,” said Kayiranga.

District officials said that they have managed to take a number of children off the streets over the last months but that it will take more time to totally eradicate the problem.

"We have opened up a transit centre at Mbazi where these children are taken care of and helped to go back to school but we need the collaboration of other partners in ensuring that more do not come to the streets,” said Aloysie Nyiransabimana, the district Vice Mayor in charge of social affairs.

However, some street children in Butare town who have been to the centre say that taking them to transit centres will not solve their problems.

"We need more than what they provide for us, for the purposes of ensuring that we abandon the streets for good. That is why I left the place after a few weeks,” said one street child only identified as Rambo.

Huye and Gisagara districts have the biggest number of street children in the Southern Province.

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