Abstract : A rapid assessment of children living on the streets of Lusaka was conducted in April and May 2001 by a group of Zambian NGOs1 under the auspices of Africa KidSAFE, a network of NGOs providing services to street children, initiated jointly by Project Concern International Zambia (PCIZ) and Fountain of Hope (FOH). The main objectives of the rapid assessment were: 1) to provide information on the basic demographics, background characteristics, and needs of street children in Lusaka, 2) to provide information to NGOs, the government, and other stakeholders for planning and implementing a program of withdrawal of children from the streets, and 3) to build the capacity of NGOs to systematically gather and record information on street children. NGOs, together with the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services, provided input into the development of a questionnaire for collecting data on the street children, based on a questionnaire developed earlier by PCIZ and FOH. The NGOs assigned staff members to participate in the assessment and were trained in the use of the questionnaire and data collection
techniques. Each of the eight participating NGOs was assigned a zone of the city, where they identified street children and interviewed them using the questionnaire. Some of the NGOs also administered the questionnaire to children that were at the time residing in or attending their
respective centres. Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS, under the supervision of a consultant from the University of Zambia.