Protecting the vulnerable: Two units to be set up to address child rights in K-P

Pakistan1992

Chief Minister (5k+ posts)
ISLAMABAD: Save the Children and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Child Protection and Welfare Commission (CPWC) representatives on Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish child protection systems in the impoverished Battagram and Lower Dir districts, said a press release.

The ceremony was attended by Save the Children Pakistan Country Director David Skinner, K-P Social Welfare advisor Dr Meher Taj Roghani, Chief Protection Officer Dr Murad Ali Afridi and DOST Foundation Chief Executive Dr Parveen Azam Khan.
By signing the MoU, Save the Children has paved the way for the establishment of two child protection units that will engage community groups in sensitising key issues including birth registration, teacher absenteeism, early child marriages and child labour.
Once organised, these community groups will work alongside the governments social welfare, education, health departments and law enforcements agencies to establish a district- based coordination and referral mechanism for vulnerable children, says the press release.
Save the Children is pro-actively engaged in training existing child protection unit staff members in eight districts of K-P.

The officials are being trained on case management, community mobilisation and the development of effective referral systems.

The non-governmental organisation will provide technical, institutional and financial assistance to K-P CPWC and Social Welfare departments in both Battagram and Lower Dir districts to put child protection systems in place by December 2015.
Skinner, in a meeting with Dr Afridi, discussed prevailing child rights issues including the rising number of street children, corporal punishment and early child marriages and explored how Save the Children and the K-P government can devise effective programmes to secure a better future for the provinces children.
Dr Afridi also highlighted that terrorist incidents had led to an increasing orphan population and rising numbers of disabled children.

In 2009, Save the Children helped draft the initial version of the K-P Child Protection and Welfare Act. This resulted in the formation of K-P CPWC, which now has the mandate to monitor, amend and propose new legislation.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/596653/...-to-be-set-up-to-address-child-rights-in-k-p/
 

Pakistan1992

Chief Minister (5k+ posts)
Childhood diseases in KP: Area-specific campaigns to promote vaccinations

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department is devising a comprehensive strategy under which information would be provided to people in local languages to increase awareness of benefits of vaccines and protect children against nine childhood diseases, including polio.

We are working on a plan to design messages in Pashto, Hindko and local dialects for specific areas and targeted population. The move seeks to create demand for vaccination. People would also be given information about immunisation in their local languages through advertisements in print and electronic media, officials said.

They said that presently the advertisements concerning vaccination were being prepared for audience at the national level, which failed to reach local populations.

For example, most women in rural areas dont understand Urdu due to which such immunisation campaigns failed to catch the peoples attention, they said. The specially-designed messages targeting certain communities will be disseminated to prevail upon the parents that vaccination safeguards their children against a host of diseases, they said.

After the passage of 18th amendment which devolved health department to the provinces and the federal ministry of health stood redundant, the government established technical communication committee at the federal level and asked the provinces to do so.

Two months ago, the provincial technical communication committee was established with representatives of the World Health Organisation, Unicef and health department as its members to draw up a comprehensive strategy to improve immunisation. The committee was required to hold meeting on quarterly basis.

However, a core group was formed to look after day-to-day issues concerning communication on immunisation. The officials said that previously the advocacy campaign was centered on polio where parents were asked to administer oral polio vaccine to their children while the new strategy would promote immunisation against all nine vaccine-preventable childhood diseases.


The province has 90 per cent immunisation coverage in central districts like Peshawar, Mardan, Swat and Nowshera while in some districts it is as low as 30 per cent, said the relevant health officials.

They said that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa immunisation programme had also suffered a setback due to more focus on polio, as measles killed dozen of children due to non-vaccination. It has been felt that the situation with regard to immunisation is not satisfactory. In this backdrop, an advocacy campaign is being designed by the core group that will be implemented after approval of the provincial communication committee, they said.

Earlier, the campaign not only failed to create demand for OPV as the province recorded 20 cases of total 58 in 2012 and six of the 27 cases nationwide in 2013, it has also adversely impacted general immunisation as the focus of health workers remained on polio vaccination, the officials said.


They said that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was authorised to put in place its own strategy formulated in the local context to gain social acceptability and enhance immunization.

There is clear role and responsibility of all the stakeholders in the committee, they said. We are also committed to doing away with about 30,000 refusals against use of OPV as the unvaccinated children pose a serious threat to the vaccinated children, they said.
The officials said that the committee with representation from the polio control room at the Chief Ministers House will provide administrative support to the polio efforts at the grassroots level.


http://dawn.com/news/1039118/childh...ea-specific-campaigns-to-promote-vaccinations
 

Ahud1

Chief Minister (5k+ posts)
SAVE the children should be banned in Pakistan that is purely proven confirmed subsidary of CIA
now Pasha the bech of cia is gone i request other loyal pakistani offcials to ban and arrest Save the children people
 

KhanSuppporter

Minister (2k+ posts)
SAVE the children should be banned in Pakistan that is purely proven confirmed subsidary of CIA
now Pasha the bech of cia is gone i request other loyal pakistani offcials to ban and arrest Save the children people

What's your solution for the problem?
 

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