Child rights stakeholders in Nepal have created a manual to assist childcare organizations in child protection. The manual, entitled “Ten Steps Forward to De-institutionalisation: Building Communities to Support Children’s Rights”, is claimed to better protect children in Nepal through a process of de-institutionalization. This process simply means taking kids out of large institutions, such as orphanages, and moving them into family-based care or other alternative childcare settings.
The manual was launched by Hope for Himalayan Kids-Nepal and the Terre des hommes Foundation of Lausanne in Switzerland. It is hoped that these steps will provide a source of motivation to childcare practitioners to bring their actions and institutions into alignment with the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Guidelines for the Alternative Care for Children.
The Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children, which were welcomed by the UN in November 2009, recognize deinstitutionalization for orphans and other children without parental care.
“While recognizing that residential care facilities and family-based care complement each other in meeting the needs of children, where large residential care facilities (institutions) remain, alternatives should be developed in the context of an overall deinstitutionalization strategy, with precise goals and objectives, which will allow for their progressive elimination,” state the Guidelines.
The call for international standards on the care of children without parental care was made in 2004. The International Social Service, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and SOS Children’s Villages were all involved in the process of creating and launching the guidelines, ultimately designed to enhance the implementation of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and other pieces of applicable human rights law.
The guidelines focus on two major areas of concern: first, the necessity of ensuring that only children in need are placed in alternative care; and second, where out-of-home care is needed, it should be provided in a way that is responsive to children’s rights, needs and best interests.
Attending the launch of the manual initiative was the Executive Director of Central Child Welfare Board, Dharma Raj Shrestha, who called the manual “crucially important,” adding that the book should guide people in a practical manner.
Gupta Prasad Sharma, Chairperson of Hope for Himalayan Kids, Nepal, opened the event.
“The word deinstitutionalization is long, and similarly the steps to it are long and difficult as well,” said Aruna Khadka (co-founder and Executive Director of Hope for Himalayan Kids-Nepal) who presented the manual with Deborah McArthur.
Himilayan Kids has been working for homeless children in Nepal for the past five years, said Ms. Khadha. By documenting the steps taken at her organization, the ten-step manual may help assist other orphanages.
The first step is building community awareness, taking stock of what is happening in the child rights/protection environmental locally, nationally and internationally. The second step involves providing information on various child rights laws and policies. Subsequent steps are about managing goals and expectations, discussing childcare components, and the logistics of delivering alternative care.
There are 650,000 orphaned children under the age of 18 living in Nepal. In this country of 29 million, 55 per cent of the people (averaged over the 1994-2008 period) live below the poverty line – that is, on less than $1.25 per day. A third of Nepal’s 12.6 million children are among those living below the poverty line.
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