By Robert Kumwenda

Yohane Banda Foundation has this Saturday organized big walk from Mpingwe Sports Club in Blantyre to Zomba Kips to raise awareness towards negative impact of giving cash handouts to street connected children and also empower their families economically.

Kondwani Mzumara, Executive Director for the organization said the idea came after the Blantyre City Council hosted a meeting with various organisations that looks into the welfare street kids some months ago.

While at the meeting, the Yohane Banda Foundation joined the group called street kid’s task force.

He said there was an assessment that was made where it was found that eighty percent of street children have parents, guardians and homes where they can stay.

“Because of this we saw it wise that there was a need for awareness, because street kids go the streets to make money for themselves and their families,” he said.

Mzumara said the best way is to economically empower street connected families to mitigate the impacts of poverty hence the reason for organizing the big walk.

He said there are two main goals for organizing the big walk- one to raise awareness so that people should stop giving money and handouts to street children and the other reason being to raise money to empower their families economically.

Mzumara added that they aim to raise about K3 Million.

He said due to poverty, there are about 1,750 street children in Blantyre and about 2,000 in Lilongwe.

The organization started in 2015 by its founding member Yohane Banda who was assisted by the late lecturer Annie Ng’ombe at Polytechnic.