RELIGIOUS LEADERS AND CULTURAL LEADERS TRAINED AS CHANGE AGENTS FOR VAC.

 

As one of the activities of the project RIC-NET trained the cultural and religious leaders about parenting and prevention of Violence against Children (VAC) on 25^th and 26^th October, 2021. The training was attended by 30 (12M, 8F) people and these included reverends and lay leaders from the Anglican Church, reverend sisters from the Catholic Church, Imams from mosques, pastors from the sevenths Adventist church,  born again churches and the parish chiefs and sub county chief of Toro kingdom and the CDO from Kibiito town council.

The Ed RIC-NET explaining the different forms of violence

during group work in the training

Religious leaders and cultural leaders were trained on different topics like positive discipline of children, transparency and communication between parents and bonding and attachment with the children. The leaders impressed the training and were sharing their experiences and lessons learnt and these were need for trust with each other for effective communication in a family, and that homes with two religions have difficulty in communication with their children. It was also learnt that father should know their responsibilities in their families, plan for their families and should know the personality of their wives to avoid quarrels with their spouses.

It was agreed from the training that sharing what has been trained on in the sermons during the services in the churches and mosques, provide the modules to the participants and at the district, involve all stakeholders in the planning process of the training that is the district people, share the outcomes of the training to other members of the denominations that did not attend the training, Continuous radio programs on Mondays on Ngabu Fm to share the critical issues and inviting some of the participants to share experiences and the CDO to organize with the cultural leaders to ensure the message is diffused in the community through the meetings in villages and parish wards. 

during the presentations in the training

The CDO thanked Bunyangabu cluster for help for fighting VAC in Kibiito town council. He cautioned the participants to be champions in fighting violence against children and encouraged the organizations to pick the OVC MIS reporting template so that the work we are doing can be reflected on the ministry of Gender website and also invite the LC 3 mayor for the trainings. A reverend sister thanked the organizations for calling them for the training because they have changed and are going to change the way they treat their children. She told the participants to protect their children because there is a car that is passing around Kibiito kidnapping the children.

The CDO giving his remarks