By Edidiong David | Project Leader
REPORT ON SUPPORT 50 VULNERABLE CHILDREN IN CALABAR SECOND QUARTER AUGUST 2023
Charles Edet Effiong Foundation, through its household-community intervention activities, renewed the hope of its beneficiaries including households and children.
These interventions were done by providing educational, health, psychosocial, and financial literacy and management to 24 vulnerable households which consists of 50 children (27 males and 23 females) and 24 caregivers. Amongst all the above services provided, special attention was given to quality education where 50 (27 males and 23 females) children were supported with payment of school fees and other school levies, etc. The academic performance of the children was also assessed using the vulnerable children's academic assessment tool. The report cards of children were also sighted during home visits. During these visits, it was generally observed that the continuous assessment results sheets which are divided into the three domains of education - the psychomotor, the affective, and cognitive domain only had the cognitive domain leaving out the other two domains. Also, it was observed that some subjects were not recorded in result sheets even though these exams were taken by the children. Caregivers also raised it during the caregivers forum as part of the concerns they had which made them sad as this led to a low rating in the overall scoring for their children.
As part of the health services provided in the period, 24 caregivers and 50 children (27 males and 23 females) were risk assessed and tested for HIV, and a total of 74 beneficiaries who were tested, had all results returned negative. Adolescent 15 adolescent girls were provided with sanitary towels, and messages on menstrual hygiene.
In addition to engaging with beneficiaries during home visits to provide services, children and caregivers were engaged during the quarter using the caregivers' forum and Kids/Adolescent meetings as foras to provide psychosocial support and parenting skills. During this session, caregivers were counseled on the need to attend parents' Teachers Association meetings at their children’s meetings to contribute their opinions and provide feedback to the school on issues in the school as they affect their children. Each adolescent was given a task on their personal growth and development, this was to get them to meaningfully support their parents by taking simple safe steps in earning incomes to gradually gain financial independence to reduce over-dependence on their parents as they have the burden of catering for the needs of the family.
During the preceding period, the Foundation provided financial education to 15 adolescents to build their resilience and reduce their over-dependence on their parents to meet their basic needs. The service was targeted at adolescents because of the need for succession planning and emergency funds within the households. The Foundation team members helped caregivers in 5 households who would be graduating in the next academic session to identify assets within their households, which their children could build upon without depending on external support. These caregivers were involved in vocations such as sewing, and petty trading. Children whose parents were into vocations like sewing were given the task of spending the holidays with their parents to build their skills in those given vocations and bring with them what they had sewn to the next meeting. Children whose caregivers were into trading were also tasked to spend more time during the holidays with them to learn the trade and also sell little items that their mothers were not selling so that they could make additional income for themselves and build a savings culture for themselves. Our adolescents found these lessons interesting and exciting and were ready to try them out. Caregivers also promised to support the children to achieve the tasks as this would bring sustainability to our intervention activities at the Foundation.
As we have earlier mentioned, findings from our engagement with our beneficiaries during home visits and caregivers forums as well as adolescent club meetings show the gaps in the results of the children, The team shall engage with policymakers and influencers in the various schools where we have our children through advocacy visits, dialogue sessions to resolve the issues around incomplete recording of results, the complete domains assessment and recording, as well as regular Parent Teachers Association (PTA) meetings.
Based on the funding available to the Foundation, we plan to increase the number of vulnerable children from 50 children to 100 in Calabar, Cross River State in this coming academic session. This is to help cushion the shock of the removal of fuel subsidy on vulnerable households which has thrown more children out of school due to the increased financial burden on parents and guardians arising from tripled financial responsibilities.
The Foundation is continually grateful to you all for all your support and contributions towards the achievement of our goal of restoring hope to vulnerable households and communities.
By Edidiong David | Project Leader
By ASARI NAKANDA | MONITORING AND EVALUATION OFFICER
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
