Child protection
Plan's child-friendly spaces are benefiting 5,000 children
At Plan, protecting children from abuse and exploitation is one of our top priorities.
Cooperating with local partners, our youth volunteers and the Haitian Government, Plan has helped to reunite separated, unaccompanied and orphaned children with their families. Throughout the year, Plan has been conducting training to raise awareness of child protection in all its programme areas.
Child protection risks
The greatest child protection risks witnessed in Plan’s operational areas have been in the crowded and unsanitary camps. Girls and women have been especially vulnerable to attack on their way to the washing facilities.
Plan has been working with the Haitian Government’s Ministry of Health and peer organisations to make local authorities and the Haitian police aware of these risks and of the importance of reporting them. A standard reporting form, developed by the Ministry of Health in consultation with Plan and other NGOs, was distributed in areas where Plan is active. Plan also established and trained child protection committees in the camps.
Our overall objective is to strengthen the capacities of families, communities and authorities to protect children and adolescents against all forms of abuse, exploitation and violence, including gender-based violence.
Our child protection measures include:
Child-friendly spaces
We constructed 30 child-friendly spaces across earthquake-affected areas to provide children with physically safe areas where they can learn, play and be children. Approximately 5,000 children have benefited from activities inside these areas.
Trained Plan staff and youth volunteers offer structured activities and games, which let children resume learning and help them come to terms with the effects of the disaster on their lives. Learn more about child-friendly spaces.
Clowns Without Borders put on 37 shows for the children of Haiti
Psychosocial support
Clowns Without Borders put on 37 shows for the children of Haiti
Research shows that emotional and psychological counselling and assessments play a vital role in helping children to recover from disasters.
Plan has trained more than 700 community volunteers, young people, teachers, school directors and staff, to help children overcome emotional distress.
Physical activity is also an effective way to help children cope. Plan is currently running a soccer project with children and youth in 11 camps in Croix-des-Bouquets and Jacmel.
We have also partnered with Clowns Without Borders, an international organisation that travels to crisis areas to perform for children. Two clown troupes have put on 37 shows in Croix-des-Bouquets and Jacmel for more than 8,500 children and young people. Such activities are key to addressing children’s distress caused by the horrific things they have witnessed.
Child-trafficking prevention
Although it was widely feared that in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake massive numbers of separated children would be taken by traffickers, this was not seen in Plan’s operational areas. Plan also worked on preventive measures with a local partner to spread child protection messages at the border with the Dominican Republic in the North East region.
More than 350 people have been trained in child protection issues and Plan teams have been established and trained on identifying children at risk and case management. These teams trained child protection committees established in 30 committees in Croix–des-Bouquets and 15 committees in the Jacmel area.
Plan is also working to ensure that all children participating in our activities have birth certificates, which is an essential element in preventing child-trafficking.
Tracing sponsored children
By January 2010, Plan had 42,000 children in its sponsor programme. To date 97% of those children have been found and work is ongoing to locate the remaining 3%.
