Communities unite to support orphans and vulnerable children
Partners for Development began collaborating with Women In Nigeria (WIN) in Benue State in 1999, stimulating income generation by extending microfinance to rural communities. Since 2002, PFD and WIN have integrated community-based reproductive health and family planning interventions to address the needs of borrowers. In August 2008, PFD and WIN commenced an Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) program in two communities of Gboko Local Government Area, Benue State.
The OVC program strengthens community-based capacity for care and support of OVC and their families by providing primary services in education, psychosocial support and health. Community volunteers mentor OVC and deliver services within and outside Kids’ Clubs.
Prior to inception of the program, need was high and local infrastructure nearly nonexistent. WIN staff and the community volunteers had little knowledge of the issues of OVC and little capacity to address them. Issues such as best practices, sustainable OVC program design, implementation and monitoring, were foreign to WIN staff and volunteers.
PFD acknowledged the need for deliberate strategies to ensure the commencement of activities, and engaged WIN management and staff, local religious, community and government leaders and persons of influence to garner support for OVC and their families in the communities. PFD engendered community participation through mobilization activities, instituting needs-based service provision and participatory monitoring and evaluation aimed at strengthening community capacity to care and support children.
The program appealed to the strong Tiv tradition of caring for the disadvantaged; inherent in Tiv culture is the belief that the upbringing of children is the responsibility of all within the community. Knowledge of the program prompted Barrister Targema Takema, a local philanthropist from Akaajime, to provide his private facility at Mtagher Takema Community Development Center as donation to PFD and WIN for program use. The barrister had built this facility for his home community of Akaajime in 1996. Currently, WIN utilizes the center to host the Kids Club sessions, and conduct trainings and periodic program review meetings. Eighty children and their mentors regularly benefit from use of the facility.
During a mid-2010 monitoring visit, Ms. Rachel Kwagkho, OVC Coordinator, Gboko-South, remarked that “This program is useful in our community with many OVC need, but we only have a limited number who can enroll to attend Kids Club sessions. But the way the children in the program learn and relate with their peers now, every other child or caregiver regardless of their vulnerability in the community wants to belong to the program. So our biggest challenge now is how to cope with the high number of most-in-need children in the community."
“On behalf of myself and the school, it is our pleasure to be identified with this noble program in addition to using our school as a Kids’ Club center to support these children to grow into useful citizens.” – Mr. James O. Mamadu, Head Teacher of Islamic Primary School, Gboko-South, Benue State, at a 2010 meeting.
“Before now I never thought the OVC problem was my concern and had no exposure on working with children. This program has exposed me to trainings and changed my orientation towards care and support of children, especially with psychosocial support services to be useful citizens in the community.” – Mr. Amos Uzua, OVC Program Officer, WIN Benue State.
