Children's Project: Redefining Child Rights within a Cultural Framework in the Era of HIV and AIDS

Project Title: Redefining Child Rights within a Cultural Framework in the Era of HIV and AIDS: Engaging Communities in Exploratory Dialogues.

Project location: Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe district of Mashonaland East province, Zimbabwe.

SAfAIDS in recognition of the plight of the Zimbabwean child is carrying out a pilot project whose goal is to locate children's rights within the fundamental values of the people of Zimbabwe, while supporting the child to realize its full potential and sense of belonging through dialogue with communities. SAfAIDS intends to carry out a series of dialogues to explore how child rights are perceived, respected, fulfilled and protected in their own context. This information will be used to develop an appropriate model for dealing with children's rights issues in African communities and will be used as a basis for holistic HIV and AIDS programming using a culturally relevant child rights approach. The objectives of the project are to;

SAfAIDS has targetted 2 communities in Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe, in Mashonaland East Province working with a Community Based Organisation, Uzumba Orphan Care Trust.

Achievements
As a starting point a partner's briefing meeting was held on the 14^th of February 2008, where participants from 28 children's organisations were briefed about the project. Through discussions during the meeting, ideas were generated for incorporating into the model. A comprehensive report of the briefing meeting is attached at the end of this article.

Way forward

A baseline survey will be carried out in the 2 communities in order to assess the situation on the ground. This baseline survey will be used as a basis for the 3 community dialogues which will be convened for the adult men and women and the custodians of culture to discuss their understanding of child rights, and documentation of the dialogues will result in the production of a handbook which will be distributed to service providers. A 3 day training of trainers' workshop will be conducted for 25 national service providers working with children, so that they can support communities to ensure the rights of the child are upheld.

There will be child participation through 2 one day foras for 60 children between the ages of 10-17 years. The children will also be trained for 2 days on the rights of the child. A comic book will be developed on children's rights to facilitate discussions with the under 8 years on children's rights. These book will be used to conduct a training of trainers' for 30 child rights facilitators from community based organisations working with children on how to communicate about rights with children below the age of 8 years. SAfAIDS will conclude this phase 1 of the project by supporting the trained facilitators to organize community trainings for at least 90 child rights advocates in their own communities.

Phase 2 of the project will seek to replicate the model in other selected communities in the country and in the region.