By Lula Jaurey
IPNews-Monrovia, Liberia-2 March 2018: In the wake of pronouncement by President George Manneh Weah`s pro-poor agenda, street selling kids are being denied access to education, care and support in urban and rural Liberia, with Monrovia exception.
The growing number of street selling kids has been a major factor leading to increasing societal ills in the country today.
There are lot more children who are expected to add to the number of already street selling kids parading between moving vehicles in along the streets and at various parking lots across the country.
Many of them have become breadwinners and are not even attending school, a situation that subject to vulnerability in Liberia.
Though the civil strife has since receded more than a decade, many children who would have loved to go to school are still finding it difficult to access education because of looming poverty.
Little Sannia R. Sando, 12, is one of the victims who was brought from the rural area by her aunty.
Sannia, who said she lastly remember sitting in 4th grade class, told the reporter she was once a student, but now a school drop-out that is selling cookies to make money for school fees.
“I want the national government to come to help me and to even stop underage children from selling on the streets,” she lamented.
Another kid, Emmanuel Sackie, 13, and also a third grade student is also a victim.
He said” “I feel bad whenever I see my friends wearing uniforms and see myself selling on the streets.”
According to Sackie, when he sees his friends going to school, he wonders when he is going to sell coconut candies to reach his school fees.
“I am feeling hurt and don’t know what to do. I want to go to school because time is passing by each and every other day”, he implored with deep sorrow.
He used the occasion to call on humanitarians, local non-governmental organizations and the newly elected government to come to their aid.
The influence of small school children selling in the streets across the country is said to be a serious problem for people in various communities, especially in the rural areas where illiteracy and poverty are battling against education.
