Posted in January 2014

 

Since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005, Juba, current capital of South Sudan, has seen rapid population growth with influx of returnees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) . This growth has accelerated with the independence of South Sudan as impoverished people from rural areas have been coming in to seek employment.


However, many people are unable to find employment as they expected due to deprivation of primary education from decades of conflict that forced them into either exile or participation in the armed conflict. The conflict also left many children without appropriate care and protection as they were no longer absorbed into the traditional social support structure of the extended family and community. These neglected children and youths go out to the streets to look for food and a sense of belonging as well as excitement. There are also youths living in slums at great risk of becoming street youths. Under these circumstances many children and youths are living without hopes in their future, and at great risk of getting involved in violence and crimes.


While several NGOs and government institutions have been supporting such children and youths in Juba, lack of human resources and capacity made them unable to provide sufficient support. Furthermore, because each organization simply tends to focuse on its own activities, there has been no substantial networking and collaboration among these organizations to deliver more comprehensive support.

In order to address above challenges, this project aims to strengthen capacity and networking of local NGOs and government institutions that provide children and youths at risk with necessary support such as awareness raising, education and vocational training, for enhancement of their comprehensive support approach.

・Understanding background of children on the street

• In early 2012, an international NGO, IBIS, conducted a survey on over 100 children on the street of Juba and found that the majority of these children “have a home and a parental guardian but live on the streets”. To have better insights into their family background, in August 2012, JCCP jointly carried out “Interview Survey on Life Background of Vulnerable Children at Risk in Juba” together with Central Equatoria State Ministry of Gender and Social Development (CES/MoGSD) and a local NGO, Street Children Aid (SCA).

• “Why is your child living on the street?” – This is the single most sought-after question the survey team wanted an answer to. But this question was too delicate to put for those parents who felt helpless as guardians because they could not provide necessities for their own children. Interviewers had to choose words carefully to elicit their honest answer. As a result, these were found as factors driving the children to live on the streets: extreme poverty, single-mother households, parental neglect, lack of educational opportunities, domestic violence and alcoholism, nostalgia towards urban life, and the shackles from traditional family structures.

・Awareness raising for children and youths at risk

• Most children and youths living on the streets of Juba have not had any educational opportunities. Lack of basic knowledge on self-care, hygiene and health is one of the most serious concerns. They are also greatly exposed to the risk of becoming either a victim or a perpetrator of violence, crime, and sexual assault. Aiming to reduce anti-social behaviors of these children and youths, JCCP in collaboration with CES/MoGSD and SCA has conducted numbers of awareness raising sessions for them, especially on the topics of hygiene, HIV/AIDS, drug abuse, gender based violence and basic English. In addition to those children and youths, JCCP provides awareness sessions at Juba Orphanage Home. It is expected that through continuous participation in sessions, these children and youths would show gradual behavior change.

・Vocational training for unemployed youths

 

• The concept of service and hospitality is not familiar to South Sudanese culture and many people are not accustomed to industry work. Most of hotels and restaurants in Juba cannot find qualified local people and tend to employ foreigners as their service staff. In order to have South Sudanese youths qualified to work in this field and to reduce unemployment among them, JCCP has been conducting training course on catering and hospitality industry for vulnerable youths.

• Trainees learn basic knowledge and skills through 2-month in-class course and experience actual work environment through 1-month on-the-job training. The uniqueness of our training is the focus on not only skills and knowledge but also work ethics. As most of the youths had no work experience, they do not know how to behave at the workplace or how to communicate with their supervisors and colleagues. This is the biggest challenge in employment of South Sudanese.
• Job placement support is another feature of this activity which enabled 75% of graduates to get employment in the past 2 years. JCCP also aims to hand over its knowledge and experience to a local NGO, Women Self-Help Development Organization, by receiving their staff to participate in the process from conducting training to follow-up of training graduates.

・Support in networking and collaboration among organizations working on child protection

•  In collaboration with UNICEF and other international NGOs, JCCP supports formulation of child protection policies and strategies and organizing workshops for CES/MoGSD and local NGOs. Setting common clear principles among these organizations would enable them to improve their work as a team or individual on activity planning, implementation, information and experience sharing towards comprehensive support.

◆　Funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)