Social work services with children in difficult circumstances living in remote areas in Zimbabwe. The case of Mutare district

Abstract

Social services appear to be more concentrated in urban areas of Zimbabwe, with little or no social work activities in remote parts of the country. Orphans and vulnerable children living in remote areas face high rates of child abuse, neglect, poverty, child headed households, hunger and lack of access to social services. They experience a severe lack of resources with little or no social work, so Zimbabwe can be said to be lagging behind the UN Millennium Development Goals on children's rights. The main goal of the study was to explore and describe the views of teachers and community members about the challenges facing orphans and vulnerable children living in remote areas of Mutare district. The study used qualitative applied research using non-random purposive sampling to recruit five teachers from two local schools in Mutare district and a snowball technique to recruit nine community members from the study population. The researcher conducted face-to-face semi-structured interviews with five teachers and a focus group with nine community members. The research was based on developmental social work and human rights theoretical frameworks. The researcher followed a thematic data analysis process and ensured the quality and reliability of the results through triangulation of data collection methods and thick descriptions of the data. Some of the main findings of this study showed that many children in difficult circumstances face many vulnerabilities and structural problems such as poverty, hunger, sexual abuse, lack of shelter, disease and have very limited or no access to social services. This study drew some conclusions about the difficulties faced by orphans and vulnerable children living in remote areas of Mutare district such as high levels of poverty, child-headed households, hunger, child labour and severe lack of resources and services. The main recommendations of the study are that the Department of Social Development must be strengthened with the necessary resources to effectively respond to problems affecting orphans and vulnerable children living in remote areas of Zimbabwe.