Our
first chapter outlined how street children, even if they have high capacities,
are vulnerable, having therefore basic and urgent needs to fulfil first. Social
interventions for street children are therefore aimed at responding to the
various developmental needs of the street children.
As Judith Ennew points interestingly: «You cannot
ignore children who are in danger, frightened, hungry or ill because
development philosophy says you should look for long-term solutions (...)»
(Ennew, 2000: 100)
She completes this comment by comparing street children to
«people» who are in a permanent emergency or disaster-relief
situation. Indeed, as in the case of earthquake victims and refugees, they need
immediate help, but this will be of maximum benefit to the street children if
it is planned so that it will become part of a long-term development solution.
In that regard, microfinance can be a valuable long-term development solution,
but whose effectiveness will be limited if we do not integrate in our framework
basic social services.
Those services comprise generally: health,
nutrition, education, recreation, awareness, psychological counselling, legal
aid, and advocacy and gender, and are a kind
of first aid. They are generally provided in
drop-in-centres (DIC), where the child is given shelter (day or/and night)
along with other social services (although night shelter must only be provided
to the most vulnerable ones).
Although positive impacts may be numerous, Ennew (2000: 110)
warns about one danger: dependency.
Moreover, as pointed in our section 2.1.3 (d), it can enhance
the supply-driven demand, as families may have higher incentive to send their
children to the streets in order to benefit from such services. The
«solution» (if any) is a good targeting strategy, with clear criteria
in the identification of street children, in order to avoid integrating in
their programs children who may not need it urgently.
2.3.4. A comprehensive microfinance plus framework: Financial
services, supporting services and social services nexus
Our previous point leads us to redesign our previous
microfinance plus framework, by trying to integrate the social services in a
logical and effective sequencing.
First, social services (i.e. «first aid») must be a
preliminary condition before providing vocational training and
disbursing credit. Indeed, this is a way of meeting some of our criteria;
However, «saving» can be viewed as direct parallel
service to the «first aid» solution. Indeed, the child, from the
street, will move to the centre where he/she will be provided with basic social
services along with the opportunity to save his/her tiny earnings. Moreover, a
positive correlation between social services and saving will appear, as the
more the child will be socially empowered, the more he will understand the need
to save money. Then, after some time, the child will be provided with the
opportunity to gain production or service oriented training, in order to move
from his/her harmful or illegal working activity, and either be placed in a
business, or either create his/her own business thanks to a credit provided to
him/her. Then, with the money generated, the child will save a part and, little
by little, sees his/her future in a better way. However, this transitory phase
does not only need social services to be provided before, but also
during the microfinance intervention, as getting money alone
is not an end in itself. This calls therefore to modify our previous
microfinance plus framework, by adding those social services to our
model.
FIG. 3.3: A COMPREHENSIVE MICROFINANCE PLUS
FRAMEWORK FOR STREET CHILDREN
SOCIAL SERVICES
SELECTION OF STREET CHILDREN WHO NEED VOCATIONAL
TRAINING
STREET CHILDREN IDENTIFICATION
DIC
SAVINGS
PRODUCTION-ORIENTED TRAINING
SERVICE-ORIENTED TRAINING
CRITERIA FOR ACCESSING CREDIT ARE MET
CRITERIA FOR ACCESSING CREDIT ARE NOT MET
(i.e. too young, too vulnerable, or not
willing to start a business)
GROUP-LENDING
PROGRESSIVE LENDING
FREQUENT REPAYMENT
LINKING THE GUARDIANS
· SIZE: SMALL BUT TAILORED
TERM: FLEXIBLE BUT DELIMITED
INTEREST RATE: LOW
CREDIT
ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRAINING
MANAGEMENT TRAINING
DELIVERED
JOB PLACEMENT
SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS ACTIVITY
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