I would like to present to you in a sketchy form the various facets of the HCUAP dream. However, due to lack of the necessary means to begin such a huge project in the dream of HCUAP, we have started with the Street Children Rehabilitation Programme only, while trusting that HCUAP will continue to grow in the shantytowns with the love and the grace of our gentle Jesus.
Street Children Rehabilitation Programme
Night and Day Walks to identify children taking refuge in the streets and observing the debilitating and vulnerable conditions that these children are faced with in the streets,
Invitation and Admission into Centres: During night and day walks, volunteers invite children to the Centres at their own convenience. They are never pressurized to come to our Centres but they are gradually made to understand their own condition and to leave the streets out of their own free will
I) Rehabilitation
(II) Non-formal education
(III) Community housing - Feeding, work, group sharing, health care, etc.
(IV) Counselling
(V) Sports and Recreation
VI) House Visitation to parents or relatives with the children.
VII) Return of child to home after maximum of six months in the Centre
VIII) Follow-up visits to homes to ensure that the child stays at home.
IX) Look for sponsors for child's formal education back at home or engagement in any technical or economic activity of child's choice.
Child Rights Resource Centre (CRRC)
The fundamental reality behind the establishment of a Child Rights Resource Centre (CRRC) is the recognition by HCUAP that children do in fact have rights. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child lays down a powerful international law, which both recognizes and protects the human rights of children. HCUAP Volunteers must recognize that children need special protection and care because they are physically and mentally young. Children have the same human rights as adults, including the rights to have their voices heard and for what they say to be taken into account.
A) What are children’s right?
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has broken all records as the most popular human rights treaty in history. This is what the convention says: Every child has the right:
· To life, a name and a nationality
· Not to be separated from his or her parents against their will
· To freedom of expression and participation in decisions affecting them
· To freedom of association
· To protection from all forms of physical and mental violence
· To be protected from economic exploitation
· To the highest attainable standard of health; and every mentally and physically
· Disabled child shall have the right to enjoy a full and decent life
· To an education
· To rest, leisure and to participation in cultural and artistic life.
It remains a fact, that there are thousands of children in every city in Africa who do not enjoy even one of these basic rights. It is for this and other reasons that these children flee their homes and families hoping to find refuge in the streets since we no longer open our hearts and homes to the marginalized children in our communities. Therefore the Child Rights Resource Centre aims at sensitising the community about the rights of the child and to bring justice to situations where children are abused and deprived of their most basic rights, be they by their parents, relatives or the community. The Child Rights Resource Centre also ensures that children capable of forming their own views are given the right to express those views in all matters affecting them. The essence of HCUAP recognizing that children have rights is to enable them to participate in decisions that affect them and listening to what they have to say. As children grow up in the community, they are able to take an increasing part in decision-making and can make a valuable contribution. Children may not always have the language and assertiveness to make their point effectively but this does not mean that have no valid point to make.
The increasing pathetic situation of children looking for shelter in the streets is a sign of the fact that thousands upon thousands of children are denied their most basic rights. The government, the community, you and I, everyone contributes to this awful situation. In the light of the work of HCUAP, the Child Rights Centre encourages the community to listen to the young vulnerable voices of their children. The Street Children Rehabilitation Programmer will only be extinct when there will be no single child left in the streets. And this is our prayer for a better world. Volunteers of the Child Rights Centre sensitize the community to come to the awareness that:
· Children can be encouraged by their parents, relatives and guardians to make their views known at home, at school at work - everywhere.
· Children can be involved in the organization and running of their school
· Government at national and local levels can involve children as part of their decision making process on matters affecting children.
· Children can be encouraged and helped to set up their own organizations to make their views known.
The CRRC will try to initiate and co-ordinate research and information projects to increase the understanding of children's living conditions, and support the implementations of their most basic rights. HCUAP takes the saying of Jesus "suffer not the little ones to come to me ", as the foundation for its work, believing that all children have the absolute right to reach their full potential, free of disease, poverty and exploitation. The CRRC works to develop long-term solutions to the very serious problems faced by young people every day and, wherever possible, gives children a voice to help determine their own future. Every child deserves a decent chance in life and the CRRC works with children and families in the slum communities to help them over-come the effects of emotional, physical and sexual abuse and neglect. We provide a strong voice for children by campaigning for their rights, needs and protection.
B. Counselling Programme
· Initiation of Alcoholic Anonymous Groups
· Counseling of Addicts to Alcohol and drugs
· Street visits to prostitutes and invitation to Centres for counseling.
· HIV-A1DS counseling and seminars
· Counseling of mal-adjustments; psychotherapy for the despair and those with critical psychosocial problems resulting from poverty, sickness and despair.
C. Community Health Care Programme
· Daily visits to families in the shantytowns
· Health care seminars
· Door-to-Door health examination of children and referring them to health Centres
D. Community Non-Formal Education Programme
· Adult Literacy
· Non-Formal Education
· Basic Education to children in the slums who do not have the opportunity to go to school
· Community technical and child care education for school dropout girls and other girls in the slums who have never had the opportunity of going to school
E. Youth Centre for Moral and Developmental Formation
· Bible Sharing Groups
· Fight Poverty Initiatives:
· Encouraging youths not to despair in the situation in which they find themselves but to initiate small projects for the generation of incomes for their own upkeep.
· Recreation, Theatre Art and Music
· Information Technology
I am very glad to have come this far in presenting to the Holy Cross Urban Apostolate Programme for street children.
For more information on how to support HCUAP, or if you wish to know more about our street children rehabilitation center or whatever this page might not have explicitly presented.
contact
+23775190069 +23775206638
holycrossurbanapostolate@yahoo.fr hcuap@aol.fr
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