Religious and faith leaders often hold positions of
great respect, trust and confidence in our society. Behind the protected walls
of religious institutions, congregants often feel safe and comfortable to
disclose and discuss their most private matters and secrets to their religious
leaders, including the often painful secret that they are experiencing abuse in
their homes. We have often stressed the role of the state and non-state actors
in addressing violence against children and adolescents but this time we took a
closer look at the role of our community of faith or our religious leaders.
Religious/faith leaders are important in influencing the behaviors, practices
and attitudes of house hold members and community members towards family
building and uniting community members through building morals both among the
children and community members which are all geared towards prevention of
violence against children and adolescents as well as building stable families.
On
6th and 8th June/2017, Good Hope Foundation organized a
training meeting for 60 (34m and26F) religious from the two sub counties of
Kisinga and Karusandara on positive parenting and prevention of violence against
children and adolescents. This was intended to team up with religious
institutions in building synergies in positive parenting and prevention of
violence against children and adolescents. Among the religious institutions
that participated in the meeting included; Roman catholic, church of Uganda, Muslim
and Adventist from the two sub counties of operation targeting mainly the
parish priests, catechists, lay leaders, imams, parish council members, head of
lights as well as the church/mosque group/ ministry leaders who included;
mothers union leaders and fathers union leaders, CHWA leaders, women’s league as
well as the youth leaders representing the youth and children ministries. The
meeting was mainly to strengthen the capacities of religious leaders to be able
to engage in the prevention of violence against children and adolescents
especially through building good morals among the families and communities and
also to empower the trained religious leaders to reach out to their religious
faiths and ministries to share with them on how children are parented and how
to build stable families geared towards prevention of violence against children
and adolescents since most of the violence against children begins at family
level.
Key
of the issues handled during the meeting included; understanding the concept of
violence against children and adolescents where the discussion mainly focused
at understanding the forms, causes and effects of violence against children and
adolescents, laws and policies in place that protects the rights of children
and adolescents and how violence against children and adolescents can be
prevented.
Participants were also taken through the concept of
positive parenting were the discussion mainly focused on understanding who a
parent is, forms of parenting as well as the different aspects of positive
parenting which included; behavior
control looking at how children are disciplined were members emphasized on
loving guidance and the use of alternative punishments when controlling the
behaviors of children. The discussion also looked at the aspect of Respect for
Individual autonomy looking at the
child as a human being who needs also to be given plat form to express his/her mind
on something that might affect him as a child and taking his/her decision of
much importance in parenting. Members also looked at the aspect of modeling
appropriate behaviors of which members said in parenting children are shaped
by their parents which means what parents do while with the children it’s
manifested in the behaviors of children. Under this aspect members discussed the
different types of behaviors that parents can model to their children such as showing
respect for others and yourself, practicing positive communication skills as
well as working on anger management were members said most of the people punish
children not out of love but out of anger. Lastly were taken through the aspect
of provision and protection which looks at the joint roles and responsibilities
of parents to provide basic necessities to the children and adolescents.
Key commitments from the
participants
The
following were some of the actions and commitments agreed upon by the
participants;
As
a way of reaching out to many community members on matters of child upbringing
and family stability, leaders of the different ministries in churches and
mosques committed themselves to always share with their members issues on
preventing violence against children as well as on positive parenting practices
during their meetings.
While organizing lessons for
Sunday/sabath/ juma, priests/imams will always be sensitive on issues regarding
children’s parenting and family stability
Working with other parish
council members, a specific Sunday/Sabbath in a very month will be set for a
summon specifically on children’s issues more especially positive parenting
Parish priests while working
with the model couples to always organize enough sharing meetings with the
partners going into marriage to prepare them for family tasks a head of them,
duties and how to solve family issues.
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| Different Religious leaders join hands to prevent Violence against Children |
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