Street children offered job to clean up Kenya's capital for rent allowance

The Governor of Kenya’s capital Nairobi has offered to pay a month’s rent for street children if they join an operation to clean up the city.

Mike Sonko told a group of street children at the City Hall on Thursday that the offer is on the table only if they stop abusing drugs, quit crime and promise not to return to the streets, local media Daily Nation reported.

“I hope when I hire you, you will not disappoint me because I am committed to working with you … I will pay your rent for one month but make sure you do not come back to the streets,” he said.

There are hundreds of street children in Nairobi who are actively involved in crime and the city council has failed in several attempts to get rid of them.

Rehabilitation programmes were instituted and children were taken off the streets in massive operations, yet they return.

Mike Sonko hopes to succeed in getting rid of them as well as clean up the city in the recently launched operation to make Nairobi the cleanest city in Africa.