Department of Children Services in Nyamira County has successfully reintegrated 297 children from Charitable Children Institutions (CCIs) to homes courtesy of ‘Changing The Way We Care’ (CTWWC) programme.
Nyamira County Coordinator of Children Services, Sammy Korir, confirmed that the exercise of reintegrating children to suitable homes for holistic growth by CCIs has progressed steadily since its inception in 2019 and is optimistic that a large percentage of children, if not all, will soon be under home-based care.
“CTWWC was initiated in Nyamira in 2019 as a pilot project and to date, we have reintegrated 297 children to home-based care and one (1) child under foster care and further reduced the number of CCIs from nine (9) to four (4), a laudable achievement which gives us hope that the remaining 115 children placed at the CCIs, will soon be suitably reintegrated to homes,” Korir assured.
He appreciated the support they are receiving from the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) organization, who are the implementing partners of the programming for the seamless coordination, which has enabled them to attain the commendable achievement.
Coordinator of children services said CRS has crafted interventions of supporting households, where these children have been reintegrated to be sustained economically such as providing education bursary, supporting capital for start- up businesses so that the children don’t run away due to lack of basic needs or overburden the care-giver for their added responsibility.
“We have started a rigorous training exercise of various stakeholders concerned with children matters, for them to closely monitor care-givers at the household level, where these children have been reintegrated to ensure their new found home environment, is conducive and the children are not abused and or discriminated against by other family members,” he revealed.
Korir said the trained stakeholders will be key gatekeepers and crusaders of children matters and their rights and was optimistic that Nyamira County will be one of the Counties, where CCIs will be extinct.
Mr. Korir appealed to Nyamira residents to embrace a collective responsibility in children care roles, to curb trends of placing children under care of Charitable Children Institutions (CCIs).
“Care of children under CCIs is mechanized and restricted, denying children the opportunity to grow, interact and develop naturally and when they are finally released from the CCIs when they become adults, they may resort to drugs and substance abuse or crime because they are unable to meet society’s expectations or fit in the ‘normal’ society,” the officer explained.
By Deborah Bochere
