By Mary Makhiringa

Balaka, May 30, Mana:  Malawi Girls Guides Association (MAGGA), under the Tilimbikitse ndi Kuteteza Ma ufulu Aana (TIKUMA) project, has trained 46 child case workers to build their capacity in child protection in Balaka.

MAGGA’s TIKUMA Project Officer, Patrick Nyerere, said on Friday that the training was meant to capacitate the case workers with knowledge and skills to identify, register, as well as refer issues that challenge child protection to relevant authorities.

“We want to ensure that each and every community has a case worker, which shall mean an increase in the fight against child discrimination and violation of their rights.

“We would like to train 293 case workers from the 62 Group Village heads that we are working with. Currently, we are just continuing with the training because last year we also trained 70 case workers,” he said.

The case workers were trained for seven days and they were drawn from six traditional authorities in the district.

MAGGA expressed hope that the trained workers will play significant role in case management on issues of child protection in the 62 areas.

“Having more well-trained case workers will help in reducing the gap that has been existing in the community as far as child protection is concerned, Case management will improve with a case worker, or more, in every group village head, as communities will be able to reach case workers who are within their reach,” Nyerere explained.

“As we are training the case workers, we are encouraging them to make sure they have meetings with the community members when they go back home. The idea is to make sure that parents are aware of the child protection referral path ways existing in their communities, because, we cannot talk of reducing child related cases if parents are left behind,” he added.

One of the participants, Mussa Sadiki, a case worker from Traditional Authority Kalembo, said the training came at the right time as a lot of children were facing numerous challenges in the communities.

“A lot of children are being denied their right to education, a lot of children are also being exploited inform of defilement, child labour. I am sure we will capacitate the community to be aware and always on the look out to report any cases of child abuse,” Sadiki added.

TIKUMA is a five-year project in Balaka and Mchinji that is financed by Save the Children, through the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), to the tune of K18. Billion on child protection and education.

The project benefits 55 schools in Mchinji and 47 schools in Balaka.