Abstract:
Charitable children’ institutions are meant to care for, protect and/or rehabilitate destitute children who have been abandoned, neglected or abused in the society. Failure to take care of such children is likely to afl°ect the future socio-economic development as well as security of a country. In the past two decades, Nakuru town has witnessed unprecedented growth in the number of destitute children and charitable children’s institutions. This study sought to critically evaluate the impact of charitable institutions in addressing the needs of the destitute children§l\ Nakuru Municipality. This study adopted an ex post facto research design. The municipality has a total of l5 active and well structured charitable children’s institutions with a population of 881 children (593 boys and 288 girls). A representative sample of 100 children and l0 managers from 10 institutions and two govemment children’s ofiicers (District Children’s Department Officer and Municipal Council Welfare Ofiicer) were included in this study. Simple random sampling was used to select the required homes while proportionate stratified sampling was used to select a proportional number of boys and girls. Purposive sampling was used in selecting the home managers as well as the children ofiicers. Primary data were collected through administration of two sets of questionnaires (children and managers) to the selected respondents and an interview schedule with the govemment officers. Secondary data were collected to supplement the primary data. The collected data were then processed and analyzed descriptively with flre aid of Statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS) version 11.5. The study supports the findings that loss of parents and the family environment are major factors contributing to destitution among children and that the homes meet the basic and essential needs of the destitute children because the services ofi°ered there are adequate for care protection and rehabilitation of the children. Based on these study findings, the researcher recommends that the govemment and society at large should refocus on the issue of parental death and come up with policies and guidelines of assisting the bereaved children.
