For eight years FIT worked to strengthen the capacities of selected NGOs and communities in Sri Lanka to promote and protect the rights of children in especially difficult circumstances. With support from the Child Rights Project (CRP) While it is recognized that all children require protection, the CRP focused on the most vulnerable, specifically those living in difficult circumstances. These included: • Working children (domestic, farm and industrial) • Sexually exploited children • War affected children • Children of migrant workers
partners were able to gain experience in the application of rights based approaches, strengthening their abilities to identify and address rights issues through carefully designed and implemented projects. Through this process CRP’s partners were able to build awareness of, and commitment to, child rights among parents and families; community leaders; and the education, social welfare, legal and health systems.
The Project developed targeted training approaches to assist NGOs, government agencies and community groups to gain knowledge of children’s rights, situating the Convention on the Rights of the Child into the local context. NGO partners also received training and coaching to build their capacities to apply rights-based approaches including: conducting participatory situational analysis; mobilizing key duty bearers (parents and families, school officials and child protection authorities); encouraging meaningful participation of children and building their voice in the community; and advocacy and networking. The Community Initiatives Fund (CIF) allowed our NGO partners to apply this capacity development support through projects designed to address child rights violations in target communities. Through these projects, CRP partners supported the development of active children’s organizations to participate in addressing rights violations in the areas of education, child labour, discrimination and failure to protect. As well, several projects addresses the special needs of children affected by the 25-year armed conflict, through the development of psychosocial services for internally displaced and other war-affected children.
The CRP supported capacity development and project activities of 50 Sri Lankan non-government organizations (NGOs) based in the Central (CP), North Central (NCP), Northern (NP) and Eastern (EP) Provinces of Sri Lanka. As well, the Project extended training opportunities to front-line and management officials from provincial branches of seven government departments, including Probation and Child Care, the Women and Children’s Desk of the Police Department, and District Child Protection Committees. During the course of CRP, more than 4,000 NGO and government stakeholders received training in a wide range of topics related to the rights of children, child protection, and rights-based programming approaches. The Project had an impact in 400 communities and a cumulative reach of more than 33,500 children.
An external evaluation of the CRP carried out in 2007 found that the Project exceeded its targets in reaching children in especially difficult circumstances (CEDCs). The evaluation report notes the success of key elements of the Project’s strategy, including:
- paying due attention to changing partners’ attitudes to children;
- engaging state duty bearers in the promotion and protection of child rights; and
- using participatory research and problem identification to develop community-based initiatives.