WEBVTT

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My name is Geoffrey Oyat.

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I work with Save the Children
as a regional child protection

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advisor covering east
and southern Africa.

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I will be talking about
primary prevention and care,

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the challenges with this
in terms of children

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without appropriate
care in Africa,

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as well as what we
are doing at Save

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the Children to address it.

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By primary prevention we
mean empowering parents

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to care for their children
without discrimination which

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implies access to the most
basic things like education,

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health care, social services
without discrimination.

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And the definition of primary
prevention according to which

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we work with also these special
programmes of vulnerable,

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like child mothers or setting
in place systems and structures

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that can prevent
exploitation of children.

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What are the challenges
we have which

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leads to children leaving home
or requiring alternative care?

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Basically the drivers
include violence in the home,

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but also includes poverty,
conflict, sick parents,

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especially HIV in our
context, as well as

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things like lack of education.

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If the school is too
far for this child,

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then there is a
tendency of parents

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wanting to put that child in
an alternative care situation.

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Now in our experience
the parent's level

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of income, the ability
to have purchasing power

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to provide for their
children, the education

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status of the parents, as well
as the living arrangements

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are really the primary
predictors of vulnerability.

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Because you can have a child
mother, a single mother

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for example, who is
educated and has resources,

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then you will find
that that child

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is able to stay at home
because the conditions are

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right for it.

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So in Africa when we
go into orphanages,

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we find that four
out of five children

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do actually have
parents, one or both

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alive, because what
has pushed them

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there are other things,
not necessarily the fact

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that they are orphans.

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What are we doing at Save the
Children to deal with problems?

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In regards to children
without appropriate care,

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there are a number of
interventions looking at family

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preservation, preventive
services for separation like

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poverty reduction, giving
the family access to income;

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increase access to education and
working together with education

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team so that children have
good schools nearby and they

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don't need to go to orphanages
in order to access education;

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parenting programmes, targeting
parents to reduce violence

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basically, so that the
home environment is better

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for children; as well as
children's empowerment,

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children knowing what
their rights are,

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what they need to do,
what they need not to do,

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and how best they can live in
their various home communities.

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An example I can give is
work I was part of in Liberia

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from 2010 to 2013 where we
dealt with removal of children

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from districts, from
the orphanages, as well

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as risky situations
and reunifying them

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with their parents.

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The efforts culminated into over
400 prevention of separation

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as well as over 300
children being unified.

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But basically, the parents
sent away their children

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because they were not able to
afford basics like education.

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And when we trace them--

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because we found actually
that in orphanages,

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we realised that the living
conditions in the home was

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the problem.

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So targeted interventions,
giving them small incomes

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to begin small businesses,
working with the parents

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to understand the risk
of children staying

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away from them, and actually
what their children are going

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through in the
orphanages, as well is

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a combination of policies
with the government,

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strengthening the Liberian
government to be able to set

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in place laws and policies to
prevent unnecessary separation

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did lead to success in six
counties out of fifteen

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where we were working.

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Where it wasn't any more
easy for a parent just to

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wake up and decide that the
child will go into orphanages.

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And it wasn't also
easy for the orphanages

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to just go and pick children
because the legal framework

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had been improved.

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