- The Coast Interfaith Council of Clerics is spearheading a campaign aimed at re-integrating the children with their families.
- In Kilifi, the programme is being done in Malindi, Magarini and Ganze subcounties to ensure children are brought up in the community instead of the children’s homes.
More than 80 percent of children living in charitable institutions have parents and guardians, government officials in Kilifi have said.
The Coast Interfaith Council of Clerics is spearheading a campaign aimed at re-integrating the children with their families.
In Kilifi, the programme is being rolled out in Malindi, Magarini and Ganze subcounties to ensure children are brought up in the community instead of the children’s homes.
So far, a sensitisation programme is going on at the location level where chiefs are being trained on how to support the children during the integration process.
The CICC officials met chiefs in Malindi two weeks ago and those from Magarini to sensitise them on how they can help integrate the children back to the society.
The programme seeks to ensure children can receive support from the charitable institutions but stay with their families to grow up with community values and customs.
Magarini subcounty children officer Sebastian Muteti said reintegration was not a one off event, but a phased process where the child, institution, the receiving families and the community have to be prepared adequately to accept the children.
Speaking at Marafa in Magarini, the official said that is why they are now sensitising chiefs who are vocal and a vital institution of administration as they are in charge of those communities.
“In the communities there are Nyumba Kumi and village elders and if we don’t sensitise and give enough information to everyone involved, the children will return to the institutions. That is why it is a phased process where we need to engage through CICC as our local implementing partner. We have had a series of sensitisation through the department of Interior and the church leaders,” he said.
He said church leaders are crucial because they have a ready audience and once the policy is well articulated to them, it will be easier to pass it over to the masses.
Muteti said chiefs are the main gateway to the community and can communicate with village elders and Nyumba Kumi leaders to make sure that other than taking the children back to the community, there is gatekeeping mechanism to prevent the children from going back to the institutions.
The children officer said the programme — Changing the Way We Care — will take time but expressed optimism they will succeed because they were on the right track.
He said in Magarini there are only two children’s homes: Asante Sana and Jombas.
“In Jombas we had 23 children and because of the reintegration process 22 were reintegrated to the community. In Asante Sana we had 85 out of which 42 went back to the community,” he said.
Muteti said so far 63 children have been reintegrated to the community in Magarini but noted that the process needs a lot of things to be put in place to ensure the child is comfortable.
He said the big challenge forcing children to go to charitable institutions is poverty as people are not willing to adopt.
Muteti said most institutions are run by foreigners where the children are assured of three meals a day which cannot be guaranteed in their families.
Magarini assistant county commissioner Hemed Abdulrahman said the programme is a global strategy to ensure children are reintegrated back to the community.
He said in charitable institutions, research has shown there are so many challenges which make it hard for children to grow up with good traditions and culture.
“The plan is to ensure children are brought up in the community even if they are orphans they have guardians so that they can grow up with the values of the society,” he said.
-Edited by SKanyara