Flush out the writer in children. Blogging could draw out a young writer and open doors to their future. Consider encouraging your child to start blogging!

Children love having an audience. The instant recognition and approval that comes from a crowd just can't be beat. Employing blogs to help develop good spelling habits, grammar skills, and develop a love for writing at a young age is an innovative concept that has potential benefits:

Benefits

1.) Responsibility/Commitment - Daily Posts
 
Regular updates require children to be disciplined and responsible.

2.) Communication - Increased Communication with Friends and Relatives

Blogging or journaling gives children the opportunity to connect with relatives who might live some distance away, communicating important timely issues.

3.) Technology - Exposure to Internet Technologies

Children are growing into technology-laden world. Exposure to innovative Internet technology will help them with communication skills and résumé-building.

4.) Improved Writing Skills
 
When presented with an audience, children will want to present their "best" work.

5.) Improved Editing Skills

Proofreading is an important skill that is difficult to teach. Editing of daily entries will help children learn how to present their ideas clearly and professionally.

6.) Improved Spelling

Automated spell-checking helps children be aware of spelling errors when they occur.

7.) Typing

Getting children acquainted with keyboards at a young age will help them become familiar with their layout and function, quickly making them proficient typists.

Resource for Blogging Information - http://www.blog-connection.com

Because blogging involves the Internet, parents and teachers should also take the opportunity to educate youngsters about the dangers of the Internet. The Internet is global in its reach and developing safe Internet habits at a young age is critical. Remind children not to disclose personal information including names, addresses or location of events they plan to attend.

Staying Safe Online - http://www.small-business-software.net/staying-safe-online.htm

About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for the NotePage http://www.notepage.net and FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com product lines. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com , and http://www.small-business-software.net

Empty cans used for begging line the entrance of a house in the overcrowded neighbourhood of Grand Yoff in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, where a `marabout’ [Koranic teacher] and 10 boys rent two mosquito-infested rooms.

The boys sleep together on the concrete floor. Each morning they get up, take the empty cans and head onto the street to beg for breakfast.

These boys are `talibes’, followers of a `marabout’, to whom they were entrusted by their families to learn the Koran. But their `marabout’ - like many others who are caretakers of an estimated 10,000 children in Dakar and up to 100,000 across the country according to UNICEF - does not have the means to support them.

Thousands of `talibes’ spend hours each day walking the city in search of scraps of food and begging for money to meet a daily quota exacted by their `marabouts’, or face beatings, talibe children told IRIN.

Often with ripped clothes, barefoot and filthy, the children move alone or in packs. Many never learn the Koran, officials from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) say, and rarely do they attain adequate schooling that will lead to jobs when they become adults.

Despite the efforts of NGOs and government agencies to tackle the problem, it continues and may, according to some aid organisations such as Samusocial Sénégal, it may be growing.

NGOs Worldvision and Tostan and government officials from the Ministry of Solidarity cited three main obstacles to solving the problem: persistent poverty, an inadequate response by the government and the power of `marabouts’ in Senegalese society.

“The [`marabout’] system goes above the president,” said Ann Birch, communications leader for World Vision Senegal, and a photographer who has documented `talibe’ children.

People consult `marabouts’ on family matters, money questions, for professional advice, and even guidance on how to vote, Imam Mamadou Ndiaye, director of teaching at the Islamic Institute of Dakar, told IRIN. They are influential in all levels of society.

Financial stakes

`Marabouts’ demand that their `talibes’ give them a daily average minimum of 350 CFA francs (77 US cents), according to various children IRIN interviewed. That is a considerable sum in a country where over half the population lives on less than two dollars a day.

“The economic stakes are enormous,” explained Isabelle de Guillebon, director of Samusocial Sénégal, one of many local NGOs working with street children in Senegal.

“People are making more money off [child] begging than they would if they had jobs,” said Mouhamed Chérif Diop, programme coordinator for the local NGO, Tostan, which helps to reintegrate `talibes’ with their families.

A hesitant government

In 2005 the government passed stricter laws against begging, including stronger sentences for mistreating children. But what is missing, many NGO representatives told IRIN, is government-wide regulation of the Koranic schools.

According to Tostan’s Mouhamed Chérif Diop, “until the government regulates the thousands of informal Koranic schools so that not just anyone can open a `daara’ [Koranic school] the problem will not go away.”

The government is currently creating ‘modern daaras’ in which children do not go out to beg. But “there is lots of talk and very little action,” says Isabelle de Guillebon, director of NGO Samusocial Sénégal. “These steps are more for show and the anti-begging law isn’t being enforced.”

Some officials in the government even blame the persistence of `talibes’ on elected politicians, whom they say are unwilling to tackle the issue. “The state does not want to commit itself to solving the problem because it touches on religion,” Amadou Camara, head of non-conventional learning at the Ministry of Solidarity, told IRIN.

“In every big city, there is a religious leader who has disciples in high places in the social administration.”

Some officials said the solution is to help `marabouts’ generate revenue so they do not need their pupils to go out and beg.

Piecemeal approaches

The government Ministry of Solidarity has funds to support up to 100 `daaras’ every year to try to reduce `marabout’ dependence on begging for income, said Camara, adding that some schools could come away with 500,000 CFA francs a year (US$1,105).

Some NGO officials do not see that as a solution. “It endorses an abnormal situation,” said Mouhamed Chérif Diop, programme coordinator for Tostan. But Camara said: “If you give absolutely nothing, it’s even worse.”

NGO officials admit that their programmes are too small and uncoordinated to address the problem. “We do [all we can] with our limited means,” Samusocial Sénégal’s de Guillebon said, “but little actions we do of returning three or four children [to their families] is not going to solve the problem for 10,000 child beggars in Dakar.”

Some NGOs have tried to encourage `marabouts’ in Dakar to return home to their rural villages and find alternative incomes. With support from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the NGO Enda has helped one `marabout’ and 47 `talibes’ return to his [the `marabout’s’] home village of Pout, where he now grows vegetables and no longer sends his pupils begging.

But “actions are not systematic or on a big scale,” ENDA’s resource coordinator, Moustapha Diop told IRIN. “There needs to be a much more global approach.”

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In the marketplaces of Juba, South Sudan's capital, young boys chant: "Washing feet, washing feet!" Others simply stand with their hands out, asking repeatedly for "a little money" or "a bit of food".

These children, who sleep on the steps of buildings or in abandoned market stalls, are the fallout of the 21-year civil war that split their region apart; many of them can barely remember the families they were torn from by the violence that engulfed their villages, forcing them to run.

Nobody knows exactly how many children are living on Juba's streets, and few non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are working with them; there is no social service in place to help them locate their families or assist with family reintegration.

Relief workers in the area say that with little or no family support, no education and no protection, street children are increasingly at risk of sexual abuse and HIV.

James Mabior*, 15, is wiry and small for his age. He told IRIN/PlusNews that his family had fled the fighting in their village, but his mother had died shortly after arriving in Juba and his father was an alcoholic.

"My father was beating me at home - whenever I did a mistake he beat me. He told me that he was sick with malaria and he left to go back to our village," he said. "After that there was nobody to care for me so I came to the market." He had been living on the streets for at least three years.

Like the other boys he lives with in Konya Konya Market, Mabior survives by begging and scavenging food from local restaurants. He does not go to school and has no access to even the most basic of healthcare facilities.

One of the main dangers faced by homeless boys and girls is the sexual predators. "Sometimes it happens that men come and look for boys for sex; they are looking for boys and girls, but where I stay there are only boys," Mabior said.

"It is a mixture: Arabs, southerners, soldiers from all over ... some boys will go straight away for the money, others will resist and refuse, but this means they can get beaten." He said the children earned between US$0.05 and $0.10 for providing sexual services.
Although Mabior had heard of HIV, he had no real understanding of how it is spread, or the dangers posed by unprotected sex.

"I can get it [HIV] from eating rotten food; this is the only way I know that you catch it," he said. "Nobody in my family ever informed me about this thing ... I left school a long time ago and am willing to go back, but I can't because I have no money."

Ben Poggo*, who lives in Juba's Crown Market, said, "I have heard of HIV; if you have it you will slim up. AIDS comes through dirty things - you must keep clean and wash so that you don't get it, but for us to keep clean on the streets is hard."

Mary Isaac runs the Living Water Children's Home, a centre for 37 boys who used to live on the streets. "Boys living on the streets have no protection and are vulnerable to sexual abuse by many people," she said.

"There is only one NGO doing educational work with these children in a very limited capacity, and the numbers of children are growing daily. Many are too scared to seek out help, and will not talk about the abuse they suffer."

Rev Benjamin Lokio Lemi, head counsellor at Juba's voluntary counselling and HIV testing centre, told IRIN/PlusNews that street children were particularly vulnerable to HIV because they lacked knowledge about transmission and few knew their status or went for treatment.

"There needs to be a campaign to raise awareness of HIV amongst children living on the streets; children need to be encouraged to know their status so they can avoid risky behaviour," Lemi said. "But testing is voluntary, and they will only come forward to be tested if they have been educated."

The government of South Sudan is developing legislation that will put in place systems for the care and protection of vulnerable children, including street children, and police in the region have received some training on child protection.

*Names have been changed