First national children’s forum held

The KAYEC Trust together with the Junior council members of the City of Windhoek held the first National Children’s Forum, at the After School Centre in Grysblok in Katutura, to discuss various topics and issues that children are facing in all spheres of society.

One of the topics that were discussed is the Child Care and Protection Bill in an open forum in which children raised questions about the lack of forces present to ensure their rights are protected and ways in which they can ensure that their rights are heard and how to overcome situations when their parents do not allow them to pursue their dreams.

Another discussion zoomed in on alcohol and drug abuse and the right to education for all children. In these fora children discussed reasons that lead to children abusing alcohol and drugs and ways in which parents and government can help these children.

Emma Theofelus, the Junior Mayor of Windhoek explained the reasons why junior councillors decided to join forces with the KAYEC Trust to have a children’s forum. “For the past years the Child Care and Protection Bill document that was drafted has not been implemented and that prompted us to do this. The bill is a guide that allows children to be respected and protected and the fact that it has not yet been tabled is disappointing.

“We wanted to have a clear dialogue with our leaders as to why this is happening. They say the youth is the future leaders of this country but what leaders will we have in this country if the document that is supposed to protect us is sitting in someone’s office collecting dust,” she asked.

“KAYEC has been running for nine years. This platform is the first of its kind and is allowing our children to express themselves. Before we had the forum we mentored the learners to prepare them well,” said Flordelisa Escultura, the development programme manager at KAYEC.

It was a very interesting experience. I was not aware of the Bill of Rights and now because of the forum I learned a lot,” said Josef Matheus a pupil from A Shipena High School in Windhoek.