Reinforcing The Child Protection System In Honduras – “Proniñez” Project
To build a poverty-free, educated and healthy country that has consolidated social prevention systems, and that is democratic, safe and free of violence.
The country’s vision and plan
Project duration: 2016-2018
In Honduras, 70% of the population’s 4 million children live in chronic or extreme poverty. This affects their family, school and community environment. Aware of the complex challenges that Honduran children face, the country has carried out several initiatives over the past years aimed at transforming these institutions and adopting legislative framework that meets international standards.
To support the government’s reform objectives, the IBCR has joined forces with the Directorate for Children, Adolescents and Family (DINAF), Plan International Honduras and UNICEF since 2016 for a project to strengthen institutions and implement a comprehensive protection strategy. The comprehensive national child protection system includes various public and private organisations, entities and institutions whose coordinated plans and programmes aim at ensuring the full respect of children’s rights.
Spanning five years, the PRONIÑEZ project includes:
- A local and a community component
- A focus on institutional capacity building
- A political awareness component
Accomplishments:
- The IBCR produced a report on the child protection system in Honduras. This report helped clarify the progress and challenges of the system, technical assistance and service coordination needs, and the institutional actions to be carried out.
- With a view to create training materials and for inter-institutional coordination, the IBCR also facilitated several discussion and development workshops with DINAF personnel and other State representatives. Beyond the enriching discussions held, the workshops helped raise awareness about children’s rights and actions subject to international law, which have since been adopted through national legislation.
- In cooperation with DINAF, the IBCR organised and facilitated four days of awareness training on incarcerated children’s rights for personnel from the country’s central region’s detention centres. Thanks to these workshops, more than 200 participants were trained on children’s rights. Those in attendance included Security personnel, Support and administration staff, Psychologists, social sector personnel, legal advisors and medical staff
- Intervention locations : Tegucigalpa, Santa Rosa de Copán (in the western area of the country) and Omoa (in the north).
- Project duration: 2016-2018
- Partners :
- UNICEF
- Affaires Mondiales Canada
- DINAF
- Plan Honduras
- Highlights:
- Organise participatory meetings with several stakeholders to map out the protection system and prepare the project’s action plan;
- Sign memorandums of understanding with local stakeholders;
- Survey the current situation and needs with respect to capacity-building;
- Establish a technical steering committee that will manage the participation of all stakeholders involved in the project, as well as a coordination committee to oversee the complementarity of project-related activities;
- Provide basic training in law and police schools to ensure the durability of actions implemented.
- Fields of activity and expertise :
- Capacity building
- Applied research
- Advocacy and institutional support
- Tools, reference manuals and standards
- Training leadership
- Children in emergency situations
- Child sexual exploitation
- Children and the justice system
