Accra, March 13, GNA – SOS Children’s Villages is committed to creating and maintaining a caring and protective environment for children through its programmes.
Mr Alexander Mar Kekula, the National Director of SOS Children’s Villages Ghana, reiterated that the Organisation was committed to creating an environment where it was safe to address all forms of child abuse in its alternative care programmes by adhering to the principles of the SOS Child Protection Policy and the associated Child Safeguarding Reporting and Responding processes.
“Though these guidelines have yielded positive results in ensuring the safety of children and young people participating in our alternative care programmes, we are honest enough to admit that our childcare organization is not completely insulated from child abuse in different forms.”
Mr Kekula stated this in his address at a Dialogue Session on How to Ensure Child Protection within Alternate Care Setting in Ghana.
The one-day meeting was attended by stakeholders such as Heads of Governments Agencies and Departments and Country Director/Managers of International and Local Child Care Organisation.
Mr Kekula said in each of their four programme locations in Tema, Asiakwa, Kumasi and Tamale, child safeguarding incidents were occasionally reported and addressed, as per the SOS Child Protection Policy Guidelines and Ghana’s national laws.
He noted that there was no better place and opportunity to acquire new perspectives, share good practices, build strong synergies and promote collective responsibility in child care and protection, than in this forum being attended by all of you who are stakeholders.
He said in hoisting the meeting, the SOS Children’s Villages Ghana believed that in order to improve child protection and child safeguarding in alternative care settings within Ghana, working in partnerships was the only way forward.
He said with challenges multiplying for vulnerable children across the length and breadth of the country, due to COVID-19 and its consequences, it had become even more important for local actors (especially CSOs) to take the lead in building more partnerships with like-minded and international and national actors.
He said a collaborative approach involving civil society as well as the public and private sectors was the only viable way forward to effectively secure the rights of children and young people in alternative care.
“It is also the firm conviction of my organization that a national dialogue session of this nature, involving different stakeholders, strengthens our resolve to do advocacy for child rights, together with our partners, for greater influence in improving the quality of care and protection for children in our target group,” he said.
“Joining hands and pooling resources with like-minded organizations to engage in proactive advocacy partnerships, will give us a stronger voice to create positive changes in laws, policies and practices that promote childcare reform (including de-institutionalization processes) and ensure quality across all care options”.
Touching on the purpose of the gathering, Mr Kekula drew the attention of the participants to the fact that reliable research findings across the globe had identified that children in alternative care settings were mostly at a higher risk of experiencing abuse, neglect, exploitation, social exclusion and toxic stress (with consequences that last a lifetime), than children living under parental care.
He said Ghana was no exception to that trend, despite the strong efforts of the Department of Social Welfare (DSW), UNICEF, USAID, and some international and local childcare organizations to stem the tide.
Mr Josiah Benard Nartey, the National Child Safety, Guardian and Child Protection Advisor, SOS Villages in Ghana, said child safeguarding journey in the past years had been a challenge, however efforts had been made through changes in Ghana’s legal and policy environment to address the challenges.
GNA