Protection Services for 100 Rural Kenyan Children

Our current initiative was largely inspired by the end-of-term review of the partnership project we carried out with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Mwala Sub-County, Machakos County, Kenya, from September 2021 to August 2023. The project aimed to improve the ability of local community members to organize and carry out community-based child abuse prevention initiatives by providing them with the essential information, skills, and competencies on child protection.

Typically, Mwala Sub-County is a rural area with few economic prospects, little economic activity, and high rates of poverty.A high rate of child pregnancy has been brought on by the widespread tendency of rural-to-urban migration in search of employment prospects.During the migration, young men and women in the village leave most families, particularly children, in the hands of grandparents who are unable to adequately raise them. As a result, many families become dysfunctional, with children getting involved in sexual activities that result in early and unplanned pregnancies, as well as sexual-related criminal offences. Unfortunately, when such offences such as defilement are committed, the community tends to settle the cases internally through payment of compensation by abuser/perpetrators.

Because of this, community leaders were chosen by the local Assistant Chiefs (15 engaged members in each sub-location) to attend a three-day training on topics such as child development, legal implications/ necessary processes, and protecting children from sexual abuse and early pregnancy. Before they were completely assigned as community volunteers, they participated in practicum that included preparatory sessions to discuss these concerns in the communities and monitoring by the organization's staff as they conducted the actvities. After completing the training program, 115 community volunteers in all were given identification cards and approved as volunteers after conferring with administrative officials.

As a result, even before the project ended, community members had began carrying out child protection activities. The community volunteers also submitted 305 reports on the implementation of early pregnancy prevention activities. According to the reports, the total number of community members and primary school students who participated in their early pregnancy prevention activities was 16,989. 

The community aslo provided feedback on the activities through questionnaires distributed to local residents and primary school students who took part in the early pregnancy prevention activities. A total of 443 responses were received. 219 questionnaires were completed by community members, while 224 questionnaires were submitted by participating school children and parents at the target primary schools. According to the questionnaire responses, many respondents stated that they had learnt about parents' responsibility for child protection, the importance of supervising children, and children's rights to protection through volunteer activities. Almost half of the community members believed that poor childcare and child neglect were the causes of early pregnancy. 

Due to this, there is still a need in this community to raise awareness, with a focus on children and youth during the school holidays when they are most vulnerable to child abuse and even unexpected pregnancies. 

Links:

• Anastasia's Interview on Raising Awareness in the Community.

Beginning in August 2024, Mirai Future of Kenya launched this project with the goal of lowering the risk of early pregnancy and deliquency by offering a place (Nafasi) where young people and children from rural areas can relax, participate in interactive and playful activities, receive counseling to improve their life skills, and/or learn about the aforementioned topics (pregnancy prevention and deliquency). Because of this, we made the decision to run the pilot program over ten days in December of 2024. This is due to the fact that many chiildren and young people will be on holidays, which raises the risk of early pregnancy or involvement in juvenile delinquency. The project has so far involved four internal meetings where we have had in-depth conversations about how to develop advertising strategies, the project's timeline and outline, as well as the many individuals and authority bearers we will need to work with to carry out the activity. These sessions took place on August 9, 12, 15, and 19 of 2024.

We chose December 2nd –13th, 2024, as the official start date of the program, excluding weekends, with the goal of reaching 100–200 children and young people who are 11 years of age and older. They will have access to a safe environment where they can play, unwind, and gain confidence from important programs that provide them the tools they need to express themselves freely. In addition to offering group counseling, life skills workshops, early pregnancy and deliquency prevention awareness activities, and play items like chess, balls, and darts, the space, also known as Nafasi, will also serve lunch and snacks. In order to do this, we will begin searching for an appropriate location in September that will include each of these components to undertake the 10-day program. 

We have started disseminating information about the campaign, including the relevant meetings, activities, and initiatives we are taking to ensure the activity is a success, using our social media channels (especially English X and LinkedIn). The manager of Mwiso Rescue Center, where we support some of the children in accessing education through our individual support program, Anastatsia Nduku, was a recent interview subject for us. With a wealth of experience managing cases involving abused children, she shared key insights about the importance of running community sensetization programs to promote attitude and behavior change on child protection issues while simultaneously providing psychological assistance to children. This was one of many interviews we planned to conduct and share in order to give adequate background on the problems we plan to tackle and the necessity of these intervention techniques.

The interveiw will be made available on our social media platforms. As the program activity intensifies, we intend to provide regular updates on the progress of our activities as we head towards the pilot prrgram in December. Thank you for your unwavering support.