Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa -IFAPA

- PRESS STATEMENT

On Fri­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber 2011, we — a del­e­ga­tion of women rep­re­sen­ta­tives of dif­fer­ent faith com­mu­ni­ties in Kenya gath­ered under the umbrella of Inter Faith Action for Peace in Africa (IFAPA) Women Net­work have vis­ited the dis­placed peo­ple from the Sinai Fire Tragedy cur­rently accom­mo­dated in Tom Mboya Hall in Buruburu area of Nairobi. This sol­i­dar­ity visit has been taken in line with our shared reli­gious teach­ings which all empha­size empa­thy and com­fort to those who are in mourn­ing. We there­fore take this oppor­tu­nity to jointly send a mes­sage of con­do­lences to the bereaved fam­i­lies. As women and as moth­ers, our heart goes out espe­cially to the chil­dren who have lost their par­ents, par­ents who have lost their chil­dren and to those women who have been made wid­ows by the fire tragedy. It is a dif­fi­cult time and we pray that the Almighty may con­tinue to give com­fort at this try­ing period when buri­als are about to take place and when sadly, some fam­ily mem­bers are yet to find even a trace of their “loved ones”.

Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa –IFAPA — which was founded at an inter­faith peace sum­mit in 2002 is com­posed of Africa’s seven dis­tin­guish­able faith tra­di­tions (African tra­di­tional reli­gion, Chris­tian­ity, Islam, Judaism, Hin­duism, Bud­dhism, and the Baha’i Faith) out of a con­vic­tion that as reli­gious lead­ers in Africa, we have a role to play in sta­bi­liz­ing our con­ti­nent.
Today, we rep­re­sent three of these faith com­mu­ni­ties namely: Chris­tian­ity, Islam and Baha’i with apolo­gies from those who could not make it to be with us here today. It is sig­nif­i­cant that this sol­i­dar­ity visit has taken place dur­ing the peace week when the world has just marked the Inter­na­tional Peace Day on 21st Sep­tem­ber and var­i­ous peace activ­i­ties are still going as the week is not over yet.

As IFAPA women, we have cho­sen to mark the Peace week in this way, bring­ing the gift of peace to those who are under-going chal­leng­ing times. We know that peace in the world begins with indi­vid­u­als and that there can be no peace in the world when indi­vid­u­als are not at peace. Peace for indi­vid­u­als comes from cit­i­zens know­ing they are safe and we hereby echo the words of the IFAPA Pres­i­dent Rev. Dr. Ish­mael Noko when upon learn­ing of the fire tragedy, he did imme­di­ately write a let­ter to the Pres­i­dent of Kenya H.E. Mwai Kibaki send­ing con­do­lences as well as urg­ing him and the Government

“to give undi­vided atten­tion to safety of cit­i­zens espe­cially those who are ren­dered vul­ner­a­ble by such dif­fi­cult eco­nomic realities.”

We com­mend the Kenya Red Cross, Min­istry of Spe­cial Pro­grams and all con­cerned who have taken a lead in tak­ing care of the affected per­sons and thank the Kenyan com­mu­nity at large for the moral and mate­r­ial sup­port they have con­tin­ued to extend to the affected fam­i­lies – May the Almighty bless you for these kind ges­tures. We also con­tinue to pray for those in hos­pi­tal and those still com­ing to terms with real­ity of the losses they are fac­ing – May the Almighty give the much needed heal­ing and strength.

Nairobi, 23rd Sep­tem­ber 2011 Signed by IFAPA inter-faith del­e­ga­tion members

A Mother’s Cry for a Healthy Africa Cam­paign was launched at the IFAPA women’s pre-Summit in April 2005. The Moth­ers and Daugh­ters of Africa who gath­ered in Johan­nes­burg at the time iden­ti­fied the fact that Africa is not healthy because it is bedev­illed by a lot of neg­a­tiv­i­ties rang­ing from man-made dis­as­ters such as civil strives and wars to nat­ural dis­as­ters such as drought. They cried and ago­nized over their sit­u­a­tion as women and the sit­u­a­tion of their chil­dren — how they both bear the brunt of unrest, of dis­ease, of depri­va­tion, of dis­place­ment, of lack of water, of hunger…

This was in April 2005, but alas! The women of Africa are still cry­ing, par­tic­u­larly the women in the Horn of Africa are cry­ing and the cry is from deep within them as they watch over their mal­nour­ished chil­dren, some of who are end­ing up in death – these women feel help­less as they have done what­ever is humanly pos­si­ble within their means to try and save their chil­dren. For a mother, there is no greater pain than what these moth­ers are going through – hav­ing taken a risk and walked for kilo­me­tres on end in search of food and water, hav­ing tried to breast­feed their babies but there is no milk, hav­ing to deal with sick chil­dren, hav­ing had to leave their dead chil­dren and trek on with the mal­nour­ished but still sur­viv­ing ones. Sore feet, dry mouths, weak bodies.…the drought being expe­ri­enced in the Horn of Africa is said to be worst in the region in the last 60 years and is affect­ing more than 12 mil­lion peo­ple (the num­ber has been ris­ing). There is despair and des­per­a­tion as those expe­ri­enc­ing the drought make fran­tic efforts to save them­selves from the impend­ing death for there are sev­eral deaths which have already occurred — deaths of peo­ple, deaths of ani­mals and death of all veg­e­ta­tion. The Horn of Africa coun­tries affected include Soma­lia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Dji­bouti specif­i­cally cen­tral and south­ern Soma­lia, south­ern and south-eastern Ethiopia, Dji­bouti, north­ern and east­ern Kenya as well as parts of Uganda.

Soma­lia which has con­tin­ued to suf­fer from war and inse­cu­rity is the worst hit as the pop­u­la­tion has to deal with both inse­cu­rity and hunger. Ms Asha Hagi Elmi, IFAPA Com­mis­sioner and the founder of Save Somali Women and Chil­dren (SSWC) remarks:

Women have been flee­ing their homes and mov­ing to Mogadishu, a place which is the cen­tre of inse­cu­rity in Somalia.….Through this, we are learn­ing that the worst inse­cu­rity is hunger — these women are in search of food and water for their fam­i­lies and no longer fear guns and what­ever other inse­cu­ri­ties there may be in Mogadishu and other cities of Somalia.

Ms Asha Hagi’s orga­ni­za­tion which through the years con­tin­ues to work for the wel­fare of women and chil­dren in Soma­lia has now dou­bled efforts towards achiev­ing their goals of sav­ing the Somali women and chil­dren – never has this been more urgent, and now they have to con­tend with increased num­bers. They con­tinue to pro­vide what is known as a Dig­nity Kit for the women.

The kit includes the basics of what a woman needs. At the moment, how­ever the SSWC staff and other community-based orga­ni­za­tions are work­ing together gath­er­ing food to ensure that fam­i­lies have some­thing to eat to keep them alive. SSWC have as a response to the drought sit­u­a­tion also devel­oped a Child Nutri­tion Kit which is a pack­age con­tain­ing quick mea­sures to address the sit­u­a­tion of chil­dren, most of whom are severely malnourished. The con­tents of the kit include dates, milk pow­der, water, instant por­ridge and basic cloth­ing to meet the imme­di­ate needs of the affected chil­dren and also the elderly who have been weak­ened by hunger.

The IFAPA Com­mis­sioner appre­ci­ates the fact that

some of the areas which were pre­vi­ously closed by Al Shabab who did not allow any aid work­ers are now acces­si­ble and human­i­tar­ian assis­tance is more than welcome.

Madam Asha Hagi Elmi is a recip­i­ent of the 2009 Liveli­hood Award and sev­eral other awards for her work in peace and with the women and chil­dren of Somalia. Yet as these efforts are going on in Soma­lia, hun­dreds of Soma­lis con­tinue to flee into Kenya par­tic­u­larly to the Dadaab Refugee Camp. They are flee­ing both the con­flict and severe food short­ages. The camp built for 90,000 at one time held more than 400, 000 peo­ple but as the num­ber con­tin­ued to go up, new camps were opened up to ease the con­ges­tion. In Soma­lia, con­flict has been a fact of life, but the drought has brought break­ing point and many of those cross­ing the bor­ders to Kenya and Ethiopia walk for days and arrive exhausted, in poor health and des­per­ate for food and water.The chil­dren who arrive at the camp are severely or even acutely mal­nour­ished and accord­ing to health experts, this means that they have higher chances of dying and those who sur­vive may be affected for life. The over­crowded camps pose health and other chal­lenges, but for the thou­sands of Soma­lis cross­ing the bor­der daily, they sym­bol­ize life and all who come in have faith that, hav­ing man­aged the jour­ney to the camps, they and their fam­i­lies will live. Indeed those who arrive at the camps usu­ally have already lost some fam­ily mem­bers on the way – the ones who were too weak to com­plete the gru­el­ing jour­ney which many see as their final hope. Thou­sands of fam­i­lies endure the treach­er­ous trek across Somalia’s parched lands to reach Dadaab Refugee Camp for food and water, but for some, the haz­ards of the jour­ney still take their toll even after arrival. One woman told how she walked for six days to reach the largest camp in Kenya, Dadaab, with her three chil­dren, the old­est aged seven.

“We were hun­gry and couldn’t get work,” the woman, Dain­abo, 30, told aid work­ers. “Five days after we arrived, my hus­band died leav­ing me a widow and my chil­dren with­out a father.”

There are also reports of ban­ditry and rape along the way rais­ing ques­tions of our human­ity – why are there peo­ple who are ready to prey on fel­low human beings who are in des­per­ate sit­u­a­tions?
There are very many sad sto­ries as indeed the sit­u­a­tion con­tin­ues to be dire — chil­dren los­ing one or both par­ents, par­ents los­ing their chil­dren, fam­i­lies in dis­ar­ray, rape, ban­ditry, uncer­tainty, able-bodied, hard-working peo­ple hav­ing been reduced to a des­per­ate state of beg­ging for food not for sat­is­fac­tion ‚but the barest min­i­mal to see another day. The effects of all these touch on all the spheres of the life of a per­son as they are phys­i­cal, emo­tional, psy­cho­log­i­cal, social and even spir­i­tual. The socio-economic sys­tems are in con­fu­sion – liveli­hoods have been destroyed, chil­dren are no longer going to school, the health sys­tems are in dis­tress and aid work­ers over­whelmed. With the large num­ber of refugees cross­ing bor­ders in an emer­gency sit­u­a­tion, there are also a lot of ques­tions being posed about secu­rity in the host coun­tries. This is par­tic­u­larly in respect to the fact that secu­rity in the region has for many years been an issue of con­cern world­wide and the cur­rent move­ment of per­sons there­fore exac­er­bates the situation.

 
The United Nations first declared two areas of Soma­lia to be in a state of famine in July and said that the lives of more than 11 mil­lion peo­ple across four coun­tries are threat­ened by the worst drought in the Horn of Africa for 60 years. On 3rd August three other areas of Soma­lia were added to the list of famine stricken areas. The UN declares famine when more than 30 per cent of chil­dren are acutely mal­nour­ished, more than two peo­ple in every 10,000 die per day and peo­ple have no food or other basic neces­si­ties. The def­i­n­i­tion is now cur­rently restricted to five regions of Soma­lia. But accord­ing to the World Food Pro­gramme, the drought across the Horn of Africa is affect­ing about 12.4 mil­lion peo­ple.
Speak­ing in the Kenyan cap­i­tal, Nairobi, Oxfam’s regional direc­tor, Fran Equiza, said:

“The world has been slow to rec­og­nize the sever­ity of this cri­sis. If more action had been taken we would not now be at the stage where so many peo­ple are fac­ing starvation.”

The drought in the Horn has been attrib­uted to the effects of the “La Niña” atmos­pheric phe­nom­e­non, the strongest in a cen­tury, which already reduced the level of pre­cip­i­ta­tion dur­ing the last rainy sea­son at the end of 2010. In Kenya, the drought has been declared a national dis­as­ter and appeals for assis­tance are on-going. There are var­i­ous inter­ven­tions both local and inter­na­tional to address this dire sit­u­a­tion and the Gov­ern­ment has also taken sig­nif­i­cant steps in address­ing the sit­u­a­tion. It is worth not­ing that the Kenyans for Kenya Cam­paign which brings together ordi­nary Kenyans and the busi­ness sec­tor con­tinue to raise a sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tion towards help­ing affected Kenyans. This despite the fact that the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion is already strug­gling with high fuel prices, a rise in cost of basic com­modi­ties includ­ing food and a gen­er­ally steep rise in cost of living.

Beyond our emer­gency response, we have to strengthen children’s and their fam­i­lies’ resilience to help them cope bet­ter with the recur­rent drought sit­u­a­tions in the region, said UNICEF Regional Direc­tor for East­ern and South­ern Africa, Elhadj As Sy. “In addi­tion to short term food, water and nutri­tional sup­port there is a need for more effec­tive pol­icy, pro­gram­matic and gov­er­nance actions to bol­ster pop­u­la­tions within these dif­fi­cult liveli­hood envi­ron­ments. The effects of cli­mate change are increas­ingly felt in the region, and it is par­tic­u­larly the chil­dren who bear the brunt.”

The launch of A Mother’s Cry for a Healthy Africa cam­paign in the region in 2008 and the ensu­ing actions are now more than ever rel­e­vant in the region and it requires the con­certed efforts of all to address this cry from the women. IFAPA Women Desk echoes the words of the IFAPA Pres­i­dent Rev. Dr. Ish­mael Noko when in his state­ment on the sit­u­a­tion he called upon the national and inter­na­tional com­mu­ni­ties to put in place pre­ven­tive mea­sures to avert such hap­pen­ings in future.

IFAPA is ready to work with any will­ing part­ners to ensure this.

By. Merab Mulindi

Women Desk Coordinator

All Together for Urgent Actions in Favour of Street Children

The Inter­na­tional Day of the African Child has been cel­e­brated on June 16th since 1990 when it was first ini­ti­ated by the Orga­ni­za­tion of African Unity (OAU) now African Union (AU). The day is set aside to com­mem­o­rate the 1976 mas­sacre of Soweto chil­dren who took to the streets to demand their right to a racism-free edu­ca­tion in the then apartheid South Africa. Beyond the com­mem­o­ra­tion of the Soweto mas­sacre, the day pro­vides an oppor­tu­nity for all to reflect on the wel­fare of our chil­dren who indeed are our future and for all to take steps to address issues fac­ing them. Issues fac­ing African chil­dren are many – among these are poverty which in recent times has been exac­er­bated by infla­tion and high cost of liv­ing some of which is caused by high fuel prices, hunger and nutri­tion chal­lenges, inad­e­quate health care, edu­ca­tion which is out of reach for many, war and other polit­i­cal unrest sit­u­a­tion such as expe­ri­enced in Soma­lia and in recent times in Ivory Coast, Nige­ria and in many North­ern Africa coun­tries, nat­ural dis­as­ters and effects of cli­mate change and man-made dis­as­ters for which chil­dren bear the brunt.

Every year the African Union gives a theme to guide the com­mem­o­ra­tion and mark­ing of the day. Some of the past themes have been Plan­ning and Bud­get­ing for Chil­dren: our col­lec­tive Respon­si­bil­ity in 2010, Africa Fit for Chil­dren: Call for Accel­er­ated Action towards their sur­vival in 2009 and The Right to Par­tic­i­pate: Let chil­dren be seen and heard in 2008. This year’s theme is: All Together for Urgent Actions in Favour of Street Chil­dren.
Mrs. Agnes Kabore Quat­tara, Chair­per­son of the African Com­mit­tee of Experts on the Rights and Wel­fare of the Child has explained that by decid­ing to focus on this spe­cific cat­e­gory of chil­dren this year, the com­mit­tee intends to draw atten­tion of African soci­eties to the seri­ous threat posed to their soci­etal sta­bil­ity and cohe­sion. Accord­ing to African Union

“the cel­e­bra­tion of the Day of the African Child gives us an oppor­tu­nity to mobi­lize all our efforts toward the wel­fare of chil­dren who con­sti­tute the back­bone of our con­ti­nen­tal future.”

A widely accepted set of def­i­n­i­tion com­monly attrib­uted to Amnesty Inter­na­tional, divides street chil­dren into two main cat­e­gories: 1) chil­dren on the street — those engaged in some kind of eco­nomic activ­ity rang­ing from beg­ging to vend­ing – most of these go home and con­tribute to fam­ily earn­ings. In this cat­e­gory there is a sense of fam­ily belong­ing though some of those in this cat­e­gory may later opt to join the street per­ma­nently and 2) Chil­dren of the street who actu­ally live on the street (or out­side of a nor­mal fam­ily envi­ron­ment). Fam­ily ties, even when they exist, are for this cat­e­gory ten­u­ous and are main­tained only casu­ally or occa­sion­ally. Accord­ing to a 1993 World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) report, some of the causes of chil­dren on the streets are fam­ily break­down, armed con­flict, poverty, nat­ural and man-made dis­as­ters, phys­i­cal and sex­ual abuse and exploita­tion by adults, dis­lo­ca­tion through migra­tion, urban­iza­tion, over-crowding and accul­tur­a­tion. Other con­tribut­ing fac­tors include chil­dren who are dis­owned and orphaned.

Accord­ing to Dr. Kopoka of the Uni­ver­sity of Dar es Salaam, soci­ety views street chil­dren as trou­ble­mak­ers, a nui­sance or men­ace to be taken off the streets. He goes on to say that these street chil­dren are often scorned, mis­treated and mis­un­der­stood. In Kenya they are known as chokora, in Tan­za­nia watoto wa mtaani and in DRC they are known as mol­neaux (spar­rows) – all demean­ing g terms. Yet very few peo­ple take time to find out why in the first place, these chil­dren are on the street where they are deprived of fam­ily love and pro­tec­tion. In African soci­eties, chil­dren are a gift to be cher­ished, chil­dren are a bless­ing and chil­dren are val­ued. This then means that the pres­ence of chil­dren on the streets with no love, no care, no pro­tec­tion and where they undergo harass­ment and bru­tal­ity, hunger and dis­ease, harsh treat­ment from secu­rity agents such as the police or other adults, road acci­dents and other dan­gers they con­tinue to be sus­cep­ti­ble to by virtue of liv­ing in espe­cially dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances must be an indi­ca­tion of soci­etal prob­lems which need to be addressed and thus a call for action.
Chil­dren are cen­tral in the cam­paign A Mother‘s Cry for a Healthy Africa — a cam­paign which brings the women of Africa from the dif­fer­ent faith com­mu­ni­ties together and build­ing on their shared spir­i­tual val­ues, enables them to work together in address­ing some of the chal­lenges con­tribut­ing to the ill health of the con­ti­nent. The term ‘mother’ auto­mat­i­cally means that there is a child and what bet­ter imagery can one give to show the impor­tant place occu­pied by the child in IFAPA than the mother-child rela­tion­ship? Mrs. Rose Mwak­were, a mother within the IFAPA net­work and one who is deeply rooted in grass-root com­mu­ni­ties in Kenya had this to say;

Par­ents, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties have a respon­si­bil­ity for the wel­fare of all chil­dren includ­ing those on the streets. The fact that they are on the street is an unques­tion­able indict­ment to every par­ent and the society.

The IFAPA Women’s Pro­gramme envi­sions a healthy Africa as

….an Africa in which the chil­dren and youth that have been given to us are cher­ished and not abused or neglected….

Unfor­tu­nately, abuse and neglect, poverty, break­down of fam­i­lies are some of the rea­sons why some of our chil­dren are on the streets. Accord­ing to ILO and UNICEF the esti­mated num­ber of chil­dren on the streets world­wide is 120 mil­lion out of which 30 mil­lion are esti­mated to be in Africa.
“How often do we hear the term street chil­dren and when we do, do we pay atten­tion to the mean­ing and impli­ca­tion of the term?” poses Mrs. Lucre­tia War­ren, of the Baha’i Faith and a founder mem­ber of IFAPA — Botswana Chap­ter. She goes on to say that this unfor­tu­nate term does not give the chil­dren an iden­tity as such — it merely high­lights their very sad plight and most basic depri­va­tion. She also notes that in most African tra­di­tional prac­tices, chil­dren, all chil­dren, belonged to the com­mu­nity, and the extended fam­ily sys­tem ensured that there was no child with­out a home. “My hope is that human­ity will look at these chil­dren with new eyes, and work closely with com­mu­ni­ties and gov­ern­ments to ensure that chil­dren, our chil­dren, God’s chil­dren, cease to be street children.”

Sim­i­larly an Alger­ian Pro­fes­sor: Larbi Djeradi who is also an IFAPA Com­mis­sioner observes; “A child is a Gift from God and the Street is a space for the move­ment of things, a space for shar­ing and for con­vivi­al­ity — Two ‘bless­ings’ that the Wise and Mer­ci­ful Lord granted to humans, two Theo­pha­nies as some would spir­i­tu­ally say. Those who dis­re­gard the sacred­ness of one, the other or both, can only alter that ‘deposit’ of the Spirit which they carry in them and hence los­ing what is most noble: the sense of the Divine. The respon­si­bil­ity of fathers, moth­ers, fam­i­lies and those who have author­ity or power to guide oth­ers is immense. Aban­don­ing a child on the street, not car­ing to pro­tect him or her from all dan­gers is not only a crime against human­ity, but also against the majesty of the Lord.”

The good news is that Africa has indi­vid­u­als and net­works will­ing to take action in rec­ti­fy­ing the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion con­cern­ing the chil­dren of Africa. IFAPA as a continent-wide inter­faith orga­ni­za­tion joins African coun­tries and other orga­ni­za­tions in mark­ing the Day of the African Child by chal­leng­ing the net­work mem­bers to work with mem­bers of other faith com­mu­ni­ties and within their inter­faith net­works to address the issues around the wel­fare of chil­dren and espe­cially street chil­dren who are deprived of all the children’s rights as out­lined in the UN Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child and the African Char­ter on the Rights and Wel­fare of the Child. It is worth not­ing that most of the African coun­tries are sig­na­to­ries to these two char­ters and the two have been rat­i­fied in most of these coun­tries. The African Gov­ern­ments there­fore have a respon­si­bil­ity to see that all chil­dren are pro­vided for as out­lined in these two impor­tant char­ters which are explicit on the rights of the child.

Ms Hajiya Bilk­isu, a Com­mis­sioner of IFAPA under the Nige­ria Inter-Religious Coun­cil (NIREC) is a mem­ber of the Arewa Media Forum: a Kaduna-based NGO which orga­nizes fora where national issues and par­tic­u­larly those that are pecu­liar to or are of crit­i­cal rel­e­vance to the North are dis­cussed, says in her col­umn in the Daily Trust that “In North­ern Nige­ria, there has been a chal­lenge of the alma­jirai: these are pupils of Tra­di­tional Quaranic Schools whose par­ents give them to a Quaranic school teacher –malam who is too poor to pro­vide for their basic needs for food, cloth­ing and health­care. It is for this rea­son that the alma­ji­rai are hun­gry, dirty and dis­ease rid­den and alien­ated and spend a con­sid­er­able amount of time beg­ging for food, doing menial tasks and fuelling the army of the unem­ployed in urban areas. They are often used as the can­non fod­der for social unrest.” This is an issue which, accord­ing to the col­umn has also been exten­sively dis­cussed in the Arewa Media Forum. She quotes some of the pre­sen­ters at the var­i­ous fora who are dis­cussing this issue not­ing that “the pupils resort to beg­ging because the par­ents do not pro­vide finan­cial sup­port for the upkeep of their children”

Ms Bilk­isu is unhappy with this sit­u­a­tion and has this to say “To expose chil­dren to the vagaries of life with­out pro­vid­ing for their needs under what­ever pre­text is child abuse and a vio­la­tion of the com­pre­hen­sive pack­age of rights Islam pro­vides for chil­dren. It is un-Islamic to vio­late these rights and per­pet­u­ate a vicious cycle of irre­spon­si­bil­ity whereby par­ents give birth to chil­dren they have no inten­tion of pro­vid­ing for only to throw them out to the streets. Islam abhors abdi­ca­tion of parental respon­si­bil­ity and exploita­tion of the weak and vul­ner­a­ble in the soci­ety.” The Niger­ian Gov­ern­ment has for­tu­nately, as part of its effort to imple­ment the Uni­ver­sal Basic Edu­ca­tion Pro­gram decided to build schools cater­ing for these alma­jiri chil­dren. The prob­lem will also be fully addressed when the Bill that seeks to estab­lish a National Com­mis­sion for the Erad­i­ca­tion of Child Des­ti­tu­tion becomes law and comes into force.

All Together for Urgent Actions in Favour of Street Chil­dren is the Day of the African Child 2011 theme – a timely theme from which we can all build activ­i­ties and act in our var­i­ous local­i­ties and coun­tries thereby impact­ing on the African con­ti­nent as a whole. The theme takes into account the fact that the prob­lem of street chil­dren, like most of the other chal­lenges faced by our chil­dren, needs a multi-faceted approach as it can­not be fully dealt with by any one sec­tor. IFAPA is there­fore call­ing upon inter-faith net­works and coun­cils to play their part in this. IFAPA is also will­ing to work with like-minded orga­ni­za­tions and part­ners who have a con­cern for the wel­fare of the chil­dren of Africa and is ready to part­ner with oth­ers in address­ing the var­i­ous chal­lenges fac­ing African chil­dren either in indi­vid­ual coun­tries or the con­ti­nent as a whole under the plat­form of the IFAPA Women’s Desk.

Ref­er­ences:
1. African Union Web­site: Mes­sage of the Chair­per­son of the African Com­mit­tee of Experts on the Rights and Wel­fare of Chil­dren on the occa­sion of the 21st edi­tion of the Day of the African Child 2011.
2. Kopoka, Peter Anthony (PhD): The Prob­lem of Street Chil­dren in Africa: An ignored Tragedy: Paper pre­sented at the Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence on Street Chil­dren and Street Children’s Health, April 2000
3. IFAPA Women Pro­gram Doc­u­ment, 2006
4. Ms Hajiya Bilk­isu (mni): Daily Trust News­pa­pers
5. African Char­ter on the Rights and Wel­fare of the Child
6. UN Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child

By Merab Mulindi
IFAPA Women’s Desk Coor­di­na­tor