Projects

COMPLETED PROJECTS

• Family/Community Re-Integration of Conflict Affected Children

Period:	2004 - 2007 AD
Overview:	Nepal began to face an armed conflict when the Nepali communist Party (Maoist) started its "People's War" in 1996. Children have suffered a heavy loss during this conflict. 357 children died. Thousands of children had to flee their family and community. The conflict has also orphaned some 8000 children. Many organizations took initiatives to provide conflict-affected children with care and support, as an immediate response to their problems. The government notably tried to rehabilitate about 200 conflict-affected children through established institutional care facilities. SAHARA Group provided a temporary shelter a temporary shelter for those children in Nepalgunj (Midwest region). This was a good experience which helped to reintegrate 48 children in their family. But the problem could not be only resolved through some short-term measures such as temporary shelters, that is why SAHARA launched a new project called 'Family/Community Re-integration of Conflict-affected Children". This project consisted in long-term, sustainable and geographically extended approach to the problem. The aim was to reintegrate immediately or as quickly as possible the children within their family and community instead of leaving them in Emergency Transit centers. The family and community were then given the main responsibility for the reintegration of the children.
Objectives:	Reintegrate conflict-affected children who were taking temporary shelter at SAHARA Emergency Transit Centre, Nepalgunj Pilot an appropriate model for reintegration of children at community level who were kept in institutional care system Promote a child-friendly community care system instead of institutional care by encouraging replication of the initiative's modality by other child care-taker institutions
Activities:	The activities of SAHARA Group followed the IDTRF approach, in other words it follows a process of 5 steps: Identification, Documentation, Tracing, Reunion and Follow-up. Identification of the child who need help Documentation: all information regarding the child in crisis is documented properly Tracing: assessment of the community situation into which the child is expected to be reintegrated Reunion: readjustment, socialization and normalization of the child in the community Follow up visits to monitor the success of the reintegration Concrete activities of SAHARA; Provide children with survival facilities in its sheltering house Counseling services for both affected children and their family members Interaction with community members: local representatives, social workers an schoolteachers formation of community safety nets Formation of child clubs Reintegration of the child with the family/community Income generating support to caregivers supervision and monitoring of the reunited child-guardian relationship
Achievements:	A total of 54 children reintegrated All reintegrated children fully accepted by their families/communities All reintegrated children enjoy basic child rights, including the rights to health, education and nutrition the initiative has become a good practice ("model")of reintegration for other agencies working in this field
Funded by:	Save the Children Norway
Location:	Banke, Bardiya, Dailekh, Surkhet, Dang, Dolpa, Humla, Jumla & Sindhupalchok Districts, Nepal