Children on the Edge

Charity Aims

Children on the Edge is a non-profit charitable organisation dedicated to helping marginalised and forgotten children, who are living on the edge of their societies. These are children without parental care, neglected or persecuted by their governments, ignored by international media and missed by large overseas agencies. Working in partnership with local communities, they create safe, child friendly environments. Here they support children and their communities to realise their rights and restore the ingredients of a full childhood by generating hope, life, colour and fun.

The organisation is based in Chichester and was founded by the owner of The Body Shop, Dame Anita Roddick, (DBE) in 1990 following her visit to several Romanian orphanages.^[1]

History

• Anita Roddick sparked the beginnings of Children on the Edge in 1990, in response to the Romanian Orphanage Crisis. After witnessing the appalling conditions in Romanian orphanages first hand, Anita mobilised her company, The Body Shop International, to help these children. Initially, this involved helping three orphanages in the small village of Halaucesti in the Iasi district of Romania.
• By 1992, the team had developed considerable expertise in working with institutionalised children. This prompted the organisation, upon invitation to expand its work into Albania.
• By 1994, the work developed into Bosnia. It was clear that the organisation was working primarily with vulnerable children, in particular those without parental care. It was then that Rachel Bentley co-founded Children on the Edge.
• In 1999, thousands of Kosovan Refugees arrived in the town of Korce, Southern Albania where Children on the Edge was working. The organisation became involved in the relief effort, developing the skills necessary to work with refugees. The same year, Children on the Edge expanded into Kosovo to help rebuild the schools and communities devastated by conflict.
• Working with the children of Kosovo developed the organisation’s expertise to include children in post conflict situations. In 2000 Children on the Edge was invited by UNICEF to work with traumatised children and youth post-conflict in Timor-Leste and in 2004 when an earthquake and tsunami hit Indonesia, Children on the Edge utilised their skills to help children in the area most devastated by the disaster.
• Since then, Children on the Edge has expanded its reach to include helping children who have escaped ethnic cleansing and persecution in Burma as: migrants, refugees and IDPs (internally displaced people) living within Burma and on its borders. New programmes are opening up in Asia to help some of its most vulnerable children (working children, refugee children, children suffering from caste persecution), Uganda (regeneration of slum communities) and Lebanon (Learning Centres for Syrian refugee children).

Current projects

Community Schools for Working Children in Bangladesh

The plight of poor families in Bangladesh is desperate and access to basic essentials is scarce. UNICEF estimates that over 5 million children between 5 and 14 years old are sent out to work,^[2] often in dangerous conditions, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

Together with partner MUKTI, Children on the Edge support nine Community Schools specifically set up to help children who work the Cox’s Bazar beach area. 900 young workers attend the centres for two to three hours a day. Here they receive a nutritious meal, attend lessons, freshen up with a wash and have the chance to play and rest with their friends. This innovative programme has developed a flexible model to meet the educational needs of these children close to where they live and work, whilst working closely with their families to foster greater understanding of the importance of education.

Transforming Slum Communities in Uganda

Soweto slum is one of 8 peri-urban townships within Masese II, an area surrounding Jinja. This slum is home to over 4,000 people cramped within 10 acres. The majority of these people have been displaced by conflict in Northern Uganda.Brewing and distilling alcohol in dangerous and unlicensed breweries is common in the area, was Soweto’s primary economic activity and conditions in the slum were appalling. Children were being exposed to extreme hazards around the brewing area and are even fed the dregs of the alcohol mix. Child abuse was common and continual exposure to inebriated men and prostitution left children at greater risk of abuse and HIV. Child sacrifice was a growing issue in the Jinja area, and children left unattended throughout the day, or wandering any distance from home, were vulnerable to this.

Through establishing a Child and Community Centre together with partners Adolescent Development Support Network (ADSN), Children on the Edge are providing early years education for children under 5 and educational support for children of primary school age. This Centre also provides nutritious meals, in order to reduce child malnutrition and improve health. Community Child Protection Committees mobilise local people to care for their children more effectively and receive support and advice on parenting, health, nutrition and preventing abuse. The area is now cleaner, child abuse has lessened and incidents of child sacrifice have dropped dramatically. Vulnerable households are beginning to meet their own needs through the agricultural component of the project. This includes micro-finance schemes, comprehensive agricultural training, land and inputs. With this alternative to providing income and sourcing nutritious food, 9 out of the 14 breweries have now closed down and there have been no cases of child sacrifice^[3] in Soweto for 2 years.

After the success of this pilot project we are now looking to replicate this work in the neighbouring communities of Wandago and Kimasa.

Support for Displaced Children in Kachin State Burma

Kachin State is the northernmost state of Burma and is bordered by China to the north and east. The Kachin people are an ethnic minority in Burma, a highland indigenous people with rich traditions. Historical tensions between the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) and the Burmese Government have intensified in the last three years, placing civilians at huge risk. Human Rights Watch have reported^[4] government soldiers blocking needed humanitarian aid, torching villages and firing on innocent civilians and Fortify Rights have extensive evidence^[5] of systematic torture being used as an attack on civilians. These abuses constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. Those Kachin now living in the crowded IDP camps are terrified and cut off from vital aid.

Through consultation with local groups and a thorough needs assessment. Children on the Edge found that, although some aid and support had got through to more accessible areas around Laiza, there were 12 higher altitude camps in the northern part of the state that were still cut off. As a result, through partnerships with the Kachin Women’s Organisation and the Kachin Development Group they are now supporting 12 Early Childhood Development Centres for 1440 displaced Kachin children in these outlying internally displaced settlements.

Learning Centres for Syrian Refugee Children

The violent internal conflict in Syria^[6] has demolished entire neighbourhoods and forced more than nine million people from their homes. 4 million^[7] have had to flee to neighbouring countries, with over a million of these ending up in Lebanon. With a population of just 4 million themselves, the Lebanese have the highest per capita concentration of refugees in the world, and have been struggling to accommodate this flood of new arrivals. The official UN policy has been to integrate Syrian refugee children into Lebanese schools, but these are now at capacity, so there is a need for education within the camps. Although they are working to provide some informal education in the area, as a consequence of the ever increasing influx of refugees, this cannot extend to all of the Syrian refugee camps in Bekaa Valley. Large refugee camps are not permitted by the Lebanese government and as a result, throughout Bekaa Valley, small refugee camps of 50-100 families have sprung up, many of which are still without basic services for children, including education.

Children on the Edge are supporting the running of tent schools which provide quality child-friendly education for Syrian refugee children. The schools are safe places with a trusted adult presence. Where other projects of this kind bring in teachers from the outside, this model raises up teachers from within the Syrian refugee community. Teachers have been trained from within the camps, which is creating a sense of ownership of the project throughout the community and providing vital livelihood opportunities.

Child Rights Approach

Children on the Edge has a rights based approach in all the work it does, it is guided by a UN treaty called The Convention for the Rights of the Child. This convention is a promise, made in 1989, by governments across the world, to do everything in their power to protect and promote children’s rights to survive and thrive, to learn and grow, to make their voices heard and to reach their full potential. Being guided by the CRC means that instead of regarding children as passive objects of care and charity, they are seen as human beings with a distinct set of rights. As an organisation Children on the Edge resource and support children to be agents of change in their own futures.^[8]

References

External links

• Official website