Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Paying attention to Children's Needs !!!

Since 1999, ILO IPEChas funded the work of Oundation Renancer in Columbia. When it began work in this area in 1994 , the NGO knew that the first cahllenege to be addressed in relation to trafficking and exlpoitation of children was the general lack of awareness and information on the problem , The first phase of thei work , therefore , involveddevelopment of methodologies for preliminary studies in cities around the country . They then motivaterd multi-disciplinary workshops to see how to respond to the challenges defined and to develop action models.



What came out of this preperatory work was the opening of an external 'attention centre' in Bogota that began offering health ,psychological and legal support to a small group of children and young people . By 1995 , it had become clear that children would need longer term support and time away from the streets , so a residential centre was added . In 1998 , new centres were opened in Cartagena and Barranquilla . The aim of these was to provide a home and sense of belonging for the children.



But long term , even permanent service provision is costly . To try and move the work towards self-sustainability. Fundaction Renacer decided to open restaurents in which the children could work. In this way the childrean learn skills , contribute to their own upkeep,and the project has some income (although self - sustainability has not yet been achieved ).

No comments: