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Orphans
& vulnerable children: 2004 Regional Conference Report Back
Regional AIDS Initiative of Southern Africa/VSO
May 2004
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Executive
summary
VSO-RAISA broke with tradition when it included youth participants
at its annual conference – and this was entirely appropriate
since this year’s theme was ‘Orphans and Vulnerable Children’. Approximately
80 people attended the conference, including partners from around
the region, youth delegates, their guardians and VSO–RAISA staff.
"It
is important to bring children into adult forums that focus on
children so that they can present the views of children".
"When
adequately empowered, children do have a lot to contribute in
matters that concern them" - Justin Mucheri,delegate from
Zimbabwe
A common challenge
for many organisations working with children is to overcome African
attitudes that "children should be seen and not heard".
At the VSO-RAISA conference five young Zambians and five young Malawians
were certainly heard.
They spent the first two days working mainly in their own groups,
learning skills such as composing Memory Books and doing Art and
Play therapy. Simultaneously the adults attended break away sessions
around topics related to the theme of the day, where day one focused
on care and support (particularly community care) and day two was
discussing the rights of the child, education, psychosocial support
and networking. Both the youth and the adult delegates attended
all plenary sessions together.
The third day
all participants worked together on skills building, with the youth
in the role of facilitators. They shared both their personal experiences
and their skills obtained during the first two days with the adults.
The adult participants were divided in two groups, where one group
attended the Memory Book session, and the other participated in
the Art and Play therapy session. Next to the skills building sessions
the youth also staged a drama about the problems faced by Orphans
and Vulnerable Children.
"It
was most important for us to ensure that the youth were able to
take skills away with them".
"We
hoped to provide some sort of support for the youth delegates
to share these skills with other organisations and, perhaps more
relevant, their peer groups/clubs and fellow youth at their organisation
back home" - Lorna Robertson,conference organiser
Judging from
the confidence with which the youth shared their skills it is assured
that Memory Books and Art and Play therapy will find their way back
to Namibia, Zambia, Malawi, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.The
involvement of the youth in the conference was much appreciated
by the participants.
"This
conference offers a fine example of how the voices of children
can be included in our endeavours". - Misrak
Elias,Country
Representative, UNICEF South Africa
Where the conference
gave much room indeed for the involvement of the youth, also many
other discussions took place among the delegates, both in plenaries
as in smaller groups. This report reflects the discussions which
took place and below the main conclusions are given.
It was agreed
that the scale of the problems around Orphans and Vulnerable Children
is huge and that the duration will be long. It is occurring in the
context of massive poverty and food insecurity. To fight the problems
a joint effort between the governments and the communities is crucial
and partnerships between them have to be formed. Partnerships and
networking between various NGOs itself was also considered pivotal
when working on issues around Orphans and Vulnerable Children.
An issue which
was much debated was whether institutional care or community based
care was most appropriate. The delegates agreed that, due to the
scale of the problem, the main emphasis should be on community responses.
Extended families should be the first carers but it was recognised
that a lot of ‘over-extended families’ exist as a result of AIDS.
The need for use of volunteers in the community was recognised but
a question was raised how to sustain those volunteers. Training
and small allowances for the voluntary carers were suggested to
use as incentives, although this in turn also could have its negative
side effects. Because Orphans and Vulnerable Children are increasingly
cared for by grandparents and other elderly community and family
members, the delegates agreed that it was crucial that groups working
to support Orphans and Vulnerable Children would create linkages
with organisations working with the elderly. In that way joined-up
programmes can be created.
Alongside the
involvement of the communities, the role of the governments is also
crucial. A recurrent statement made during the conference was that
the state has to take responsibility and that it should draw up
and implement legislation supporting the care of Orphans and Vulnerable
Children, for example around birth certificates, inheritance rights
and access to support grants. It was proposed that NGOs must be
like watchdogs to keep the governments accountable.
Where the conference
title speaks about Orphans and Vulnerable Children, participants
noted that this might not be the most proper terminology. Orphans
and Vulnerable Children makes one think that orphans and vulnerable
children are different groups of children, where in fact children
who are orphans are mostly also vulnerable. Alternative terminologies
were proposed, such as ‘Children Affected by AIDS’ and ‘Children
Living in Difficult Circumstances’.1
There was plenty
of discussion about gender, especially around care. Where in many
traditional African societies women are seen as the main caregivers,
the conference attendants emphasised the role men can and have to
play. As one participant put it clearly: "Men also have
hands". It was also discussed whether psychosocial care
should be different for boys and for girls.
Education was
seen as vital to prevent the spread of HIV & AIDS and also to
empower Orphans and Vulnerable Children. Governments should secure
education for children but also other examples of teaching children
about HIV & AIDS were given, such as through initiatives by
the church and through theatre.
The conference was certainly not all work. Many delegates
enjoyed an optional excursion to Johannesburg in the late afternoon
on the first day to view the RAISA sponsored photographic exhibition
‘The Fatherhood Project’ at MuseuMAfrikA.
The day after
there was a second exhibition of photos and personal accounts on
the lives of people who are HIV+. There was also plenty of fine
food and dancing to popular African music. The conference turned
out to be an inspiring, uplifting and energising experience for
all who participated – particularly the youth, who were networking
furiously to make contacts for involvement at future events.
1. In this report
the term ‘Orphans and Vulnerable Children’ will be used. This is
done because VSO-RAISA used this term prior to the conference. However,
VSO-RAISA does recognise that ‘Children Living in Difficult Circumstances’
might be a more proper definition and is currently discussing whether
to use this in the future.
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