Fondazione Marista per la Solidarietà Internazionale

The Marist International Solidarity Foundation has just concluded a follow-up regional program on advocacy for promoting the rights of the child in the city of Nairobi, Kenya. This program was aimed to train different link people in Africa – people engaged in the ministry of protecting children’s rights working in collaboration with FMSI on matters such as the universal periodic review Universal Periodic Review (UPR – a mechanism of the United Nations that can be used for monitoring and promoting children’s rights around the world) along with child protection policies. The program was conducted by Br. Jim Jolley, Director of Advocacy and Training of FMSI, from November 11th to the 14th.

The group of 18 participants comprised of Marist Brothers and lay people, women and men. They had the opportunity to raise their concerns on different matters related to the children’s rights situation in their own communities. The participants – coming from different countries in Africa (including Nigeria, DRC, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania and Rwanda) – were chosen by their provincials to attend the workshop and work together with FMSI as link persons on the countries from which they came.

During the first and second day, the participants were given an overview of the content of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the process of the UPR. In the following two days they had the opportunity to work on a Child Protection Policy that they could apply to their own institutions. On the last day every link person had to develop anaction plan so as to properly implement the child protection policy they developed for their own school or institution.

With this follow-up programme FMSI ensures that its advocacy activity for children can be supported by a good number of people in Africa, namely by those who are now well aware and have a good understanding of advocacy for children and can provide information and assistance to FMSI in the future. Participants were eager to point out the necessity of keeping up these types of workshops to help ensure that the various Marist institutions across the continent are well prepared and competent in the protection of children’s rights.

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Diego Aguilar (Lay Volunteer working in the Marist Community of Mwanza, Tanzania)
http://www.fmsi-onlus.org