Residents of Ayeduase and Kotei in the Oforikrom Municipality of the Ashanti region are lamenting an upsurge in crime among school-going children.

They allege basic school children in the communities are trained and recruited by hardened criminals into their gangs.

Nurturing Dreams Ghana, a non-profit organisation, is taking steps to address these juvenile crimes in the area.

Residents and traders in the Ayeduase and Kotei communities say after 7:00 p.m., they pack up and retire to their homes due to fear of the growing insecurity in the area, adding that there are incidents of daylight robbery.

“When they don’t get proper training and they’re growing but can’t get anything to do to support themselves, they start to attack the students, stealing people’s laptops and phones,” one of the residents said.

Another claimed that: “The gangs move from home to attack teachers at the school premises.”

Perpetrators of these robbery attacks are teenagers and children. Some are apprentices in various vocations, while others are from broken homes.

They are influenced by peers to steal time away from school and work to engage in negative habits.

A sixteen-year-old and a 15-year-old are among such children.

Coming from poor backgrounds, they almost fell into the hands of bad company. But they were fortunate to meet a benefactor who turned their lives around.

“Sometimes we sleep on empty stomachs. Back then, we couldn’t fend for ourselves. I was just roaming about. I was brought here by my mum to learn a skill,” the 15-year-old said.

Currently, both teenagers are chefs at a cafeteria.

This is an initiative by Nurturing Dreams Ghana, a non-profit organisation, which camps, raises and impacts teenagers from poor and broken homes.

Teenagers are trained to acquire various vocational skills aside from schooling.

Founder of the cafeteria, Evelyn Deladem Ansi says the eatery is not-for-profit but a venture to reduce unemployment and social vices.

“The cafeteria is a social business so it’s not about the profit but an opportunity to train young people. We look for students who have completed SHS or even JHS to provide them with skills so they can cater for themselves and their families. We do not want to see them idling,” she said.

Nurturing Dreams Ghana aims to create a nurturing environment to train children into responsible independent and skilled teens.