UNICEF donates motorbikes, computers to five districts in Upper West Region
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has donated five Yamaha AG motor bikes and five desktop computers and accessories to officers of the Department of Community Development in five districts of the Upper West Region.
The donation is expected to enhance the department’s child protection activities in the beneficiary districts including; Wa Municipal, Lambussie, Daffiama-Bussie-Issa, Sissala East and Lawra Districts as part of the implementation of a project that seeks to build the capacity of child protection actors on the use of various child protection tools.
Alhaji Sulemana Alhassan, Upper West Regional Minister who handed over the motor bikes and computers to Mr. Moses Anabanga, Regional Director of the Department of Community Development during a refresher training workshop for child protection actors in Wa, appealed to the officers to put the machines to efficient use to benefit the people especially children.
The Regional Minister noted that government in collaboration with its development partners and civil society actors had been implementing a range of policies, programmes and activities aimed at strengthening the country’s child protection system.
Building on a range of interventions, experiences and lessons of the past, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) in collaboration with UNICEF has recently developed two policies, namely the Child and Family Welfare (CFW) policy and the Justice for Children Policy (JCP), he said.
These policies, Alhaji Alhassan said were aimed at strengthening child protection systems that prevented and responded to issues of violence, exploitation and abuse of children and as well ensure justice for children.
He said part of the process of putting this CFW policy and the JCP into practice was to strengthen the capacity of CFW actors to understand the implication of these policies.
This, he noted, would enable the actors to effectively adapt ways of working with them accordingly, adding it was in line with this that the CFW actors were being trained to enable them facilitate and carry out their routine child protection activities in their communities and institutions among others.
Mr Anabanga explained that the child protection actors received some training last year on some child protection tools and how to use them to sensitize communities to identify their own child protection challenges and deal with them.
He added that the refresher training was therefore aimed at updating their minds on the use of the tools and to identify any gaps for correction before adding new tools.
The Regional Director of the Department for Community Development said an application had also been developed for them to collect data at the community and district levels on child protection, which would be forwarded to the regional level and national levels.
The training which was made possible by UNICEF and Ghana Government was attended by key stakeholders including the Departments of Gender, Children, Social Welfare and Community Development, National Commission for Civic Education and Non-Governmental Organisations into child protection activities.
Source: GNA