Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing

Arockia Maraichelvi ¹, N. Jayapoorani ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Human Development, Avinashilingam Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, IN

Abstract

Children in general are regarded as being in need of protection from abuse, but the nature of the lives of street children exposes them to an almost unimaginable potential for exploitation. They are vulnerable to substance use that in turn threatens their physical, social, spiritual and mental well being. A survey has found that young homeless people are four to five times more likely to get addicted to substances than those in the general population. Against this backdrop, the investigator reached the fact that the endurance of these children though depends upon various factors, out of which the most important one is developing skills to abstain themselves from using psycho-active substances. The objective of the study was to enhance the selected street boy's resilient factors and developing skills to abstain themselves from substances through Life Enrichment Education. All the 66 boys within the age frontier of 13-17 years residing in the selected rehabilitation home was chosen for the study. A self structured questionnaire was framed to acquire the desired data on understanding why, how and where of substance use and on assessing their views on using the same. The second part of the schedule is readministered to the beneficiaries to evaluate the efficacy of LEE. The method of behaviour acquisition through LEE, followed in this research, include both participatory and non-participatory approaches such as role play, situation analysis, small group tasks, debates, content analysis, brainstorming, relaxation and trust building exercises and games. To conclude, uut of 58 street boys with one or more habits, there was a significant upheaval in the number of street children (50) after LEE, which made up their mind to refrain from the habits to which they were addicted as against boys' prior education. Hence more strengthened programme on LEE with special reference to abstaining from substance use had to be carried out for these children.

Keywords

Life Enrichment Education, Substance Use, Street Children.

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Arockia Maraichelvi ¹, N. Jayapoorani ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Human Development, Avinashilingam Institute of Home Science and Higher Education for Women, Coimbatore, IN

Abstract

Indeed by emphasizing the debilitating aspects of street life, most studies have brought street children to prominence as "a category of children whose life circumstances place them at physical and psychosocial risk" (Veale et al., 2000). It was in this context, the study entitled "Augmenting the lives of street children through Life Enrichment Education (LEE)" was undertaken with a main objective of enhancing the selected street children's overall development by imparting LEE to gain insight into selected physical, psychosocial and vocational aspects. This research conducted m Coimbatore city, TamilNadu, India comprised of 66 boys and 52 girls residing in rehabilitation homes. An interview scheduIe was framed to secure adequate information on their knowledge base in reference to physical and psycho-social aspects before and after imparting LEE. The data collected was systematically computed and subjected to systematical analysis. The substantial leap of the awareness percentage and the 't' value significant at 1 percent level with regard to the selected aspects of physical dimension (physical health care, substance use and reproductive health care), psycho-social dimension (communication and listening skill, assertive behaviour, emotional health and moral behaviour) and vocational dimension unmistakably designate that the LEE programme had made a better headway in the minds of the selected street children. Promotion and protection of street children's life is dependent on education, health and attitudinal changes in behaviour and confidence to lead an independent life. Hence the society is responsible to frame suitable strategies to mould their livelihood, which can be made possible with LEE as it brings forth attitudinal changes, behaviour modification and desirable health practices.

Keywords

Life Enrichment Education, Street Children.

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