The role of NGOs in the empowerment of street labor children in Tehran

Street labor children have been a new emerging phenomenon as well as a main concern about modern society. Due to the vulnerability of these children, and inability of governments to tackle their mounting problems, an increasing involvement of NGOs in helping these children have recently emerged. Having believed that the best way to deal with the issue of street children is to empower them so that they can live normally, this paper aims to study the role of NGOs in the empowerment of street labor children in Tehran through using a field research method. For this purpose, three dimensions of empowerment, including education, living skills and health were chosen for the study. It was assumed that NGOs initiatives affect the difficult states of the children positively through following both NGOs initiatives and the children socio-economic background. Findings indicated that most of the respondents believed that NGOs activities have had considerable effect on changing wretched conditions of the children. Moreover, the analysis of the data showed that NGOs initiatives are significantly associated with the empowerment of the children. The paper concludes that to enhance the state of the children, the active involvement of NGOs is necessary. Otherwise, they are rarely able to develop themselves, though this involvement should be based on a comprehensive approach. That is, any successful policy or initiative not only should focus on the street children as a very target group, but also on family as a major basis for the children misery and delinquency.