MANILA, Philippines - You're stuck in traffic and just sitting bored in your car or in a passenger jeep, tweeting and you see a pack of street children running around. What can you do to help them?
Instead of giving them money, report their presence to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) through its Twitter account @savestreetkids (https://twitter.com/savestreetkids)., which was put up for the rescue of street children.
“Through this Twitter account, the public may now report sightings of street children by tweeting to us where they exactly saw these children. They can use the format: savestreetkids at / exact name of street / nearest landmark/ Metro Manila City/time of sighting," DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman announced.
"Updates will be posted within eight hours in our Twitter account on whether the street children have been rescued. They will then be brought to reception action centers of local government units and to DSWD managed-centers to determine where they came from and to be provided with appropriate services and interventions,” Soliman added.
She said that the DSWD is in close coordination with local government units and non-government organizations to monitor streets that have high presence of street children.
"The children will be invited to the barangays especially this Christmas season. Activities will be held at the barangay level to keep the children off the streets,” the secretary added.
Based on DSWD's data, there is a high concentration of street children in:
- Roxas Boulevard in Manila
- Kalayaan Road, Barangay E. Rodriguez, and Quezon Avenue in Quezon City
- Balintawak area in Caloocan City
- Roxas Boulevard in Pasay City
- Greenhills, Ortigas in San Juan City
- Kapasigan in Pasig City
- Madrigal Avenue, Alabang in Muntinlupa City
- NAIA Road in Parañaque City
Soliman said that more than 4,000 street children are in these areas.
Meanwhile, the secretary said that the DSWD will implement the MOdified Conditional Cash Tranfer program, which aims to help homeless families. She said the program will be tested in Metro Manila before being implemented nationwide.