I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. Having been in post for 100 days I wanted to share my progress with you, as well as thank you for your incredible support this year. Because of you, we have been able to support over 12,000 children to remain in families in 2019 and will support a further 30,000 children to remain in families in 2020.
Here’s what I’ve been up to:
I visited the programme in Uganda to meet with our social workers and the wider team. We had a team-building day, where we connected with each other outside our normal activities and reinforced the importance of collaboration. The team also shared their challenges, and reflected on the progress we have made this year as we continue to build a child protection system and ensure that every child in Uganda can grow up in a loving family.
Whilst in Uganda, I was able to meet with the Minister responsible for Children & Youth and the newly appointed Children’s Commissioner to discuss our progress and relentless efforts to prevent family separation. I am pleased to report that the Government has renewed our MoU for another 5 years and will continue to work with us in the districts of Tororo, Mpigi and the urban division of Makindye. The government has also adopted a number of recommendations we have proposed in our advocacy work over the last 2 years, in collaboration with other NGOs in the sector, to be adopted into policy in 2020. These policies include:
- Prioritising family-based care for children under three years old separated from their families;
- The development of a framework and guidelines for foster care, modelled on our pilot foster care programme;
- Provision of a national framework for supporting families to prevent the separation of children from their parents and families and ensuring access to quality alternative family-based care services for children deprived of parental care.
We have also now completed our budget and planning for 2020. This includes scaling the programme, taking 2 years of learnings from Tororo where no child has been placed in an orphanage since the beginning of the project, and applying them as we enter a new district – Mpigi. The 2020 plan will allow me to review and build on the 2017-2022 strategy. With your continued support and generosity, we will support 30,000 children in 2020.
I have continued to work with the team to look for new opportunities to ensure that the programme is well funded. Over 500 generous individuals have supported our work by giving their time, love, and money to our organisation both in the UK and Uganda. We will continue to grow our community of supporters in the New Year.
Here is a short video the team have put together summarising this:
I have been in touch with many of you in my first months as CEO of Child’s i Foundation and have enjoyed our conversations. I will continue to make contact in the next few months as I try to meet with as many of you as I possibly can.
Very best wishes for a very happy new year.
Christopher