The Child Protection Needs Assessment report conducted in November 2020 and the subsequent one conducted in December 2021 in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya shows that child protection risks in the camp include physical violence especially at the household level, sexual violence including gender based sexual harassment, defilement that often led to child pregnancy, child marriage, child labor and various forms of emotional violence. To tackle these problems, JOFA is promoting positive parenting practices among the community members.
All households in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, largely depend on humanitarian support especially on access to food, water, housing, health, and education among other basic services. Due to the efforts of the community, the majority of children living in the camp is enrolled in school. Despite that, their parents and caregivers remain at home with minimal income generation opportunities.
In December 2021, the JOFA project Outcome Monitoring carried out in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya revealed that the proportion of parents and caregivers who report that they know the major child protection risks associated with COVID-19 was 31.6%.
Being organized is not enough
The 2021 outcome monitoring report further revealed that the proportion of parents and caregivers who self-report ability to manage stress and provide protective and nurturing environments for their children was 5.3%, compared to 2020 when it was at 0%.
This implies there was some improvement on parents and caregivers knowing and identifying Child Protection risks in the community, while managing stress and providing a nurturing environment for their children remained an area of great concern.
The capacity among parents and caregivers in knowing child protection risks and proving nurturing environments for their children increased because of their regular engagement and reflection on how children can protect themselves from violence.
Parents and caregivers were already organized into groups for accessing humanitarian services in the camp but mobilization, organization, and sensitization activities to address child protection risks were still missing gaps.
“We used to treat our children badly, by engaging them in hawking and other forms of child labour.”
Parent in Kakuma IV.
The presence of the Block and Zone leaders in the Camp was a great opportunity for initiating parental groups and promoting child protection. In this context, the JOFA project started building the capacity of parents to identify child protection risks and to nurture a protecting environment for children.
Positive parenting to love, care, and respect your children
The JOFA project tackled the issue by using the Parenting without Violence approach. This methodology contributes to mobilize, organize, and sensitize parents and caregivers and engages children to protect them from violence.
Each of the parenting groups were taken through a series of sessions conducted by facilitators trained by JOFA. Family dreams and positive parenting goals, caring for children with emotional warmth and structure, understanding stress and importance of self-care, the right to be safe, understanding child development, and problem solving are the key topics discussed in these sessions.
Each of the facilitators conducted the training at a time and location that was acceptable for parents. The facilitators maintained a register to monitor attendance of parents and made follow-ups for some parents who might be absent during the session. The JOFA project provided each facilitator with mobile phones for collecting data to document participation and implementation of the parenting sessions.
During the parenting sessions, after every topic, parents had an opportunity to reflect on how the challenges they are facing in their households can be addressed and their parental responsibility in addressing those challenges. In the parenting group sessions, parents identified the specific child protection risks in the camp and agreed on the actions to take to address such risks.
Some of the Parenting Group Facilitators also conducted home visits to support parental engagements with children and address household specific child protection related challenges.
The impact of being a positive parent
As of 30th March 2022, the JOFA project had enrolled 3,315 parents and caregivers into parenting groups across 126 Blocks in Kakuma Refugee Camp.
Conversations with members of parenting groups show that there is an increasing interest among parents and caregivers in having block-specific engagements on how they can protect their children better and have the issues of children addressed.
There are parents who have been able to own up the mistakes they made in the past before they had parenting group sessions. Some parents have also been able to report child right violations to respective agencies in the Camp.
Parents are willing to engage more freely with their children especially in their households.
There is increased demand for more regular sessions for parents and caregivers as long as those session are conducted at their convenience.
“In our block at the refugee camp, there is a man who had locked up a child in his maize mill to defile her. When we suspected it, we broke into the mill and managed to arrest the man and reported the matter to police. He is now in jail. The mother of the child pleaded that we don’t escalate the issue, but we acted in the best interest of the child by reporting the case, and ensured the child is accorded justice!”
One parent in Kakuma Camp.
“Through Parenting without Violence trainings organized by JOFA, I have known how to stay harmoniously with my children. I used to quarrel my children, but the trainings have enabled me to appreciate the importance of listening to my children and correcting them in love rather than punishing them.”
One parent in Kakuma Camp.
Challenges
Among the challenges experienced in the utilization of the Parenting without Violence approach are:
- Some parents have not been able to attend all the sessions due to the nature of their occupation which demands that they create more time to engage in income generating activities within the Camp to supplement the humanitarian support.
- Some parents must attend sessions with very young children whom they have no one to leave with at home, thereby contributing to minimal concentration during sessions.
- Often, the topics learnt by parents may not be the same as those learnt by children, limiting their engagement at household level.
Lessons learnt
Some of the lessons learnt so far that may be sustained and scaled up include:
- Investing quality time in facilitating parental engagement sessions through a step-by-step sensitization approach that makes reference to real life context-based examples on child protection situations is a contributor to improved parental awareness on child rights violations and improved reporting on child protection cases.
- Parents and caregivers are more ready and willing to engage and share their child protection challenges and their own mistakes in environments that assure them of confidentiality and guaranteed support in addressing the concerns that they raise.
- Regular encouragement to members of parenting groups as complemented with home visits is an enabler to increased interest by parents and caregivers in acquiring new knowledge and skills in child protection.
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