Contact Person: Teamirat Seyoum, Regional Programmes Coordinator

Project Funders: Big Lottery Fund, Tudor Trust

Training at th Redeemed Christian Church of God, My Father's House, Salford

Project Background Information

AFRUCA’s experience during the last ten years has proved that child abuse exists in all societies and cultures, in family settings and in institutions of social and cultural nature as well. However, for so long and as it is the case in other religious communities, the African religious community has not been quick in accepting that child abuse takes place in places of worship- churches and mosques alike. Within this community, the subject of child abuse has been considered a taboo and consequently there has been little discussion taking place on the subject at any level. Most members of faith organisations do not wish to believe that child abuse takes place within their own faith setting and so very little has been done to address the problem.

Hence, when a crime is committed within a faith setting or by a faith leader, the victim knows no one to turn to and the abusers are answerable to no one thus protecting the abuser and further ostracizing the abused. Recently, however, the occurrence of child abuse within African faith communities has become more vivid and evidenced through court cases and media reports to the extent that it can no longer be denied or ignored. The challenge now for the African faith community is, therefore, to confront this reality and try to identify methods to deal with it.

It is also essential to acknowledge the growing number of Africans living in these areas and the increase in the number of African children engaging with the child protection system as a result of what is seen as “significant harm.” Many newly arrived Africans including faith leaders may not understand the rights of children in England and the law which protects them.

To help tackle the above, AFRUCA has launched the 'Working with faith Organisations to Safeguard African Children’ project. This programme is aimed at working in partnership to promote better child safeguarding practices among African faith and community organizations in the three cities of Bradford, Leeds and Sheffield as well as in Greater Manchester.

In order to ensure the delivery and implementation of the Project in a professional and mutually beneficial manner, we encourage all our partner faith organisations to sign a Memorandum of Understanding which details the roles and responsibilities of each partner - AFRUCA, and the faith groups.

As part of the MOU, AFRUCA will:

• Conduct child protection training sessions for community and faith leaders, faith workers and members of their congregations to educate them about UK regulations on child protection.
• Work with faith groups to conduct a Child Protection Audit of their organizations. This is a risk assessment process to identify gaps or areas that need to be strengthened or improved.
• Work with faith groups to develop, implement and monitor child protection policies and procedures to ensure they comply with statutory requirements of keeping children safe. Also train staff on how to conduct continuous risk assessments of their policies and implement changes.
• Assist the faith organization to appoint a Child Protection Officer and train them to perform their roles effectively – using our Faith Manual on Child Protection.
• Hold advice clinics for members of the congregation who need advice on parenting and on child protection.
• Produce and disseminate a range of child safeguarding material for community and faith organisations to educate on child protection issues prevalent within the African community including witchcraft and exorcism, child trafficking and private fostering.
• Provide support as well as undertaking its own monitoring and evaluation in relation to the project outcomes.

Church/Mosque shall have the following responsibilities:

4.1 It shall at all times fully co-operate with AFRUCA with its utmost honesty and integrity in facilitating the implementation of the project. This includes but not exclusively the:

1. a) provision of baseline data/information on the group and how it operates to help inform the Child Protection Audit and the Child Protection Policy and Procedures, monitoring and evaluation, risk assessments and other project activities

1. b) Appoint a Child Protection Officer as the focal point of all Child Protection work and key contact point for AFRUCA

1. c) provision of timely feedback and relevant reports on project activities

1. d) provision of facilities if and when available for project activities including training sessions and advice clinics

1. e) facilitation of AFRUCA’s engagement with group’s staff workers, congregation members and others
2. f) Co operation in undertaking project activities including joint monitoring and evaluation and risk assessment

In total, we are working in-depth as detailed above with 16 faith organisations in both areas. So far during the last one year the project has been able to deliver 16 training sessions reaching 410 African faith and community leaders, workers and parents. Five organisations in Yorkshire have developed and have started to implement their Child Protection Policies. Three have appointed Child Protection Officers as the focal point of child protection work in their organisations.

Some of the faith groups we have been working with include the Mahanaim Christian Centre (Congolese faith community) in Sheffield, the Redeemed Christian Church of God-Chapel of His Glory (Nigerian faith community) in Bradford, the Redeemed Christian Church of God Everlasting Father's Assembly in Leeds. The Living Waters Global Church in Sheffield, The Redeemed Christian Church of God Chapel of Grace in Bradford, Redeemed Christians Church of God – My Father’s House in Salford, Mangembo Christian Church in Manchester.

To find out more about our Work with Faith Organisations to Safeguard African Children in Yorkshire and Greater Manchester project, click here

To read  our project leaflet, cick here

Training at the Mahanaim Christian Centre in Sheffield with the Congolese Faith Community 09 April 2011

Last Updated February 2012