Children cry out to leaders on violence against them

Violence against children in Kasese District is reported to be increasing because of conflicts and human rights violations, economic breakdown in families,moral decadency in society, drug abuse , high population pressure on scarce resources like land, unemployment and high dependency on single breed winners.

 In a need to prevent violence against children and adolescents, Rwenzori consortium for civic competence (RWECO) a consortium of four member organizations: KALI, RIDE AFRICA, RIC-NET, GOOD HOPE in partnership with Kasese  Guide Radio, organized a District Dialogue at Nkaiga Primary School in Maliba Sub county on 13th July 2017  under the project "community driven approaches to prevent violence against children and adolescents in Kasese district .The dialogue aimed at giving children a platform to present their demands to leaders ,community members , policy makers and parents .Some of the demands included: Children’s rights to be respected, supporting their education through provision of scholastic materials , midday meals and other requirements , teachers not to be at the forefront of violating their rights,fight poverty  at the household level and parents to play their role of good parenting .

RIC-NET facilitated pupils of  Kanyatsi Primary School in Kitholhu Sub County located in the 

hills of the  Rwenzori mountain  bordering with Congo to attend the dialogue and also express their opinions about children's rights and preventing violence against them through songs ,poems and talk show  .

Kanyatsi primary school presenting a skit on violence issues

 This also exposed  the pupils  to a new environment,  to meet and interact with children from different schools .

The representative of the guest of honor Mr. Mutanaba Patrick LC3 Kisinga Sub County in his remarks thanked RWECO for organizing the event and putting children as a priority in their programs. He further said that children have summarized all the violence issues against them in their songs, poems, talk shows and skits, arguing that as leaders they are doing their part to see that violence is stopped and and called upon RWECO to engage with parents since they still remain the key violators of children and always organize similar events at the local level to reach  out a wide range of parents.

Representative of the chairperson (LCV) giving his remarks

The dialogue was attended by DEO Kasese ,district zonal leader of schools ,chairperson LC3 Maliba sub county ,head masters of different schools ,pupils from 4 primary schools ,students from one secondary school,chairperson local council ones ,district inspector of schools ,teachers ,parents and community members .

The DEO with some of the headteachers