A new working group will be set up to deal with issues facing beggars and street children. Officials from Phnom Penh City Hall met with NGO representatives yesterday to hammer out a plan to aid the homeless, municipal spokesman Long Dimanche said.

He announced that the municipality would form a working group with social services organisations Pour un Sourire d’Enfant, Mith Samlanh, ASPECA and Krousar Thmey.

Yesterday’s meeting comes on the heels of a short-lived and widely criticised city-led effort to round up beggars and street children.

The goal was to provide street people with vocational training. But many of those rounded up were simply detained in the Prey Speu social affairs centre. Pin Sokhom of Mith Samlanh, who attended yesterday’s meeting, said the organisations will assess options like education and vocational training to help the homeless “move away from the street life”.

Sokhom addded that he was optimistic about the new partnership with the municipality. “We all have the same objectives,” he said.