Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
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| Group Photo Child Safeguarding Officers |
“We had two main objective statements to fulfil: firstly, to support the eight AMECEA conferences to safeguard children from abuse and, secondly for the AMECEA Secretariat as an institution to operationalize it own Child Safeguarding Policy,” the AMECEA Child Safeguarding Officer Mr. George Thuku said reporting to participants drawn from seven AMECEA Conference.
Taking stock of some activities carried out by AMECEA’s Child Safeguarding desk in the course of the previous year (2019), Mr. Thuku highlighted some achievements towards fulfilling the objectives.
“As achievements, we managed to publish 4,000 copies of AMECEA Child Safeguarding Standards of which 2,500 have been distributed and a policy development template was developed,” narrated Mr. Thuku who has now worked at the AMECEA Secretariat for over one year in that capacity.
He added, “Training of the inter-religious council of Kenya and sensitization of pastoral workers on child safeguarding was conducted.”
As a challenges Mr. Thuku disclosed, “There is unclear role of the clergy and the laity in prevention and response to abuse.”
In Ethiopia, “We first opened an office at the national level and also assigned a focal person at diocesan level and a national officer at the national level,” the Child protection Officer at the Ethiopia Catholic Secretariat (ECS) Ms. Merhawit Chala said in an interview Monday, March 2 and continued, “Our objective was to come up with a plan for three years focusing mainly on awareness raising, capacity building for officers. We also planned for the second phase which is establishment and strengthening of diocesan offices.”
In a country that has 13 dioceses, Ms. Chala says, “So far we have conducted 10 workshops in 10 dioceses, and we will continue with awareness creation for the remaining three dioceses.” Besides, “we have also conducted two trainings which focused on what constitutes the policy and how to manage and handle abuse cases.”
“Then we also conducted two awareness workshops for the priests when they had their annual meetings and also to the major superiors,” Ms. Chala narrated.
She disclosed that they have initiated a process where anybody in direct contact with a child and works within the Catholic institution signs the code of conduct, that is, lay members of staff, the Religious and/or the clergy.
At the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB), the National Child Protection Officer Mr. Fidelis Hamweemba said, “There was the establishment of focal point persons in three dioceses.”
“We also looked at child abuse case management because we believe it is a very important component especially when focal point persons are dealing with the cases and then we also touch a bit on child trauma,” Mr. Hamweemba explained referring to the various issues they focus on when training.
“During 2019, I reached out to 200 diocesan priests and I wish to extend to other congregations as well,” disclosed Mr. Hamweemba who explained the impact so far realized from the trainings already conducted saying, “There has been considerable increase and awareness about child protection and the cases that they were grappling with have lessened in some way. For instance, we don’t hear of some of the cases they used to talk about in the past like bullying in schools or that some children are being abused by parents.”
He added, “The people we train actually take time to speak during the Parents Teachers Association (PTA) meetings where they sensitize them on the types of abuse that exist and also highlight what the law says in terms of child abuse.”
In Uganda where the expectation in the dioceses is for all stakeholders first to understand the importance of the Uganda Episcopal Conference (UEC) safeguarding the policy, the National Lay Apostolate Director who is also in charge of Child Safeguarding Office of UEC, Fr. Frederick Tusingire had this to say, “The Policy has been drafted and forwarded to the Holy See for approval and the training manual for the Training of Trainers (TOT) has been developed.”
Also, “The UEC Implementation team has been trained for the work while the Child Safeguarding team has visited 18 dioceses to sensitize diocesan authorities on the policy and its implications. Furthermore, candidates for diocesan child safeguarding office have been trained in collaboration with the University of Kisubi and some people working with children have been sensitized,” “Fr. Tusingire explained.
Highlighting some of the achievement from Episcopal Conference of Malawi, the National Education Coordinator who is also acting as National Safeguarding Officer. Br. Paschal Mtuwana said, “In two dioceses, all staff members are being asked to sign for a code of conduct; in another Diocese the bishop succeeded in ensuring that all priests sign the code of conduct.”
Br. Paschal Mtuwana who is a member of the Brothers of Immaculate Conception popularly known by the French abbreviation FIC, disclosed the plans underway in the Conference saying, “We expect to organize a workshop for the Bishops, priests and Religious and eventually send our policy document to Rome for review. After getting feedback from there, we can then translate the policy into two major languages.”