World Vision in Papua New Guinea says its new scheme working with street kids aims to find out why they are on the streets.
World Vision's Children in the Streets Situation project, focussing on children aged 15 and under in four identified settlements of south Port Moresby, was launched last week.
The project manager, Zorah Pilyo, says they want to identify the issues in families and communities that have pushed these children to live on the streets.
She also says that by working with churches and relevant government departments they hope to make parents and carers more aware of their responsibilities.
"So with that partnership we would like to do more awareness on child rights and child protection because we found out that people in those communities have absolutely no idea as to what the rights of a child are and we were surprised to find out that there were so many child abuse [incidents] in many forms occurring there and that is one of the main reasons that children run away from their homes."
