Government has embarked on a process to upgrade rehabilitation centres for youths in the country, to not only host more juvenile delinquents but also help impart vocational skills to those they host.
The implication is that every youth accommodated in a centre, after undergoing rehabilitation they will be given a skill of their choice to ensure that once discharged, they will have no reason to go back wandering on streets.
Currently, some of these centres offer such services, but not all of them.
According to Aime Bosenibambwe, the Director General of the National Rehabilitation Service, these youths would make a lot of difference not just in their own lives, but also their families and their communities, once discharged with a skill to start a new life.
He announced this on Wednesday while awarding certificates to 86 young men and women who graduated in culinary arts and horticulture from SACCA, a rehabilitation centre located in Kayonza Eastern Province.
Bosenibamwe said that the government is upgrading rehabilitation centers and constructing new ones to receive many youths and offer diverse vocational skills.
"We’re sure that after upgrading Gitagata (Bugesera District), Iwawa and constructing Nyamagabe centres, we’ll be able to receive many at once and train them and send them back to society with skills for earning a living,” he said.
Speaking on the upgrading, Bosenibamwe said that Iwawa Rehabilitation and Vocational Skills Development Centre, which is located on an island in Lake Kivu, will host over 6,000 males from the current 4,000.
Gitagata, in Bugesera District will be able to host 1,000 and will be preserved for young female delinquents and its upgrades will cost Rwf2 billion while the new Nyamagabe Rehabilitation Centre will take Rwf4.2 billion and able to host 2,000 males.
However, Bosenibamwe said that much as a lot is being done to ensure youths are taken off the streets and helped to forge a meaningful life, the primary responsibility lies with parents, to ensure children do not end up on these streets.
Previous studies have indicated that lack of family planning among parents and violence in homes were the biggest contributors to delinquency.
"There is total commitment on the part of government to ensure the problem of street children is done away with. We have overcome far bigger problems than this but it all starts in our families, let everyone of us play their role,” said Bosenibamwe.
Upon being discharged from rehabilitation centres, the government will be giving these youths tools in their respecting fields of training and help them form cooperatives in their districts to make money.
Previously, rehabilitation centers have been governed by districts in which they are and regulated by district councils but today, they have been handed to the National Rehabilitation Service, which is now seven months old.
Valentine Mukamuyenzi is the leader of SACCA where over 4000 children have been rehabilitated since it was established over 10 years ago.
The centre was opened by a local association that is supported by different stakeholders and gets over Rwf7 million from government every year.
Mukamuyenzi confirmed that the government’s strategy to put a stop to juvenile delinquency is practically possible.
"From my experience, domestic problems are the root cause of children going to the streets. If local authorities can be keen enough, they can help children stay in families,” she emphasized, also echoing Bosenibamwe’s call that the parents are central in this endeavor.
Mukamuyenzi says that with support from Business Development Fund (BDF) over 1,600 youths who have graduated from SACCA rehabilitation centre and have gone on to become great entrepreneurs.
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