KALI FORM AND TRAINS SCHOOL CHILD RIGHTS CLUBS

During the training  of the child rights club at Mpondwe P/S (Photo by: Baguma Augustine)

Child Rights Clubs are school based supported structures that aim at promoting rights of children to Education. Schools are supported to form and train club members and they are given basic information on their rights and responsibilities.

KALI with support from the Independent Development Fund has formed and trained 5 clubs in the 5 schools of Mpondwe P/s, Isango P/s, Kayanzi P/s, Buhathiro P/s and Kinyamaseke P/s. These are the target schools for the project “Promoting child rights in Kasese District”

The club members consist of 25 pupils each school (these were selected with the help of Patron/ Matron, from primary 4-6)which has been trained on their rights as Human beings and as children and their responsibilities. These rights were highlighted as; Right to food, Right to life, shelter, education/information, movement, expression, medication, proper clothing and family belonging

Different children highlighted the challenges they face in the effort to realizing their rights. These challenges include; poverty which is the main drive to forced marriages, defilement, child labor,absenteeism because of lack of scholastic materials and school dues (some UPE schools ask for parents’ contribution to infrastructural development, remedial lessons and children feeding). We committed to engage with the SMCs and Head teachers, District leaders and Community on these challenges so that we can together find solutions.

We agreed on the reporting mechanisms which start from the prefects-Head Girl and Head boy, Teacher of duty/ class teachers, Head Teacher, Chairperson Management and the nearest Police station at school level and at community level; we highlighted the Community Human Rights Defenders, Community elders LCIs and Police, depending on the nature of the abuse/case.

The roles and responsibilities of the club were highlighted as; creating awareness both at school and community level through debates, radio talk shows, Music, Dance and Drama, follow up on school drop outs so that they come back to school, report cases of violations and abuses, engagements with leaders and writing articles and essays portraying child rights messages. From these roles, action/ work plans were developed in every school which will be followed up to track performance.

As KALI, we envision change in terms of; increment in enrolment, retention rates up to primary seven (P7), reduced child abuses at school and community level and improved performance at all levels.

KALI community based Human Rights Activists are empowered with information. He is able to share with the children at Kayanzi P/S (Photo by Masika Scovia)