Collaboration and partnerships are our strengths at Catholic Care for Children Kenya (CCCK) and Catholic Care for Children (CCC) as a whole. Since 2020, we have collaborated with many like-minded organizations, among them the Association of Members of the Episcopal Conference in Eastern Africa (AMECEA). As Associations of Consecrated persons in AMECEA, we are proud and grateful for this partnership, which has been of great help to us to champion the child care reforms as we strive respond better to signs of the times, guided by our specific charisms in the noble task of giving care to children and vulnerable adults.
The Associations of Religious Sisters in Kenya promotes the CCC movement mission by ensuring that its work is feasible at national level but also regionally and globally. The coming in of AMECEA in particular has helped us enhance the visibility of CCC’s work by supporting our communication desks. Through our collaboration in the past one year, CCCK and Catholic Care for Children in Uganda (CCCU) have developed their communication and advocacy strategies. In addition, CCCK has documented success stories as well as trained and mentored child care institution administrators in social communication. The same applies to Catholic Care for Children in Zambia and in Uganda.
We are grateful for the partnership and we pray that it continues so that we can jointly advocate for care reforms in our various countries for the care and protection of the minors and their caregivers. Together, we ought to strengthen families and streamline the implementation of child safeguarding guidelines in the region.
It is also an avenue for AMECEA to push for care reforms in the other AMECEA countries where Catholic Care for Children is not present. This is very possible because if all AMECEA member Conferences embraced the CCC aspirations and used their pastoral and social development structures, many families would be strengthened to protect, love, and nurture their little ones. In this way, we shall reduce recourse to institutional care of children and realize family- and community-based care.
Our thanks to the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa for use of this article from the AMECEA July 2022 magazine.
