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Project: Title: Children in Suriname Programme Programme goal: To strengthen the capacity and collaboration among agencies – mainly NGOs - working with and on behalf of children and youth in Suriname. The overall coordination of the Children in Suriname programme rests with ICDI, whilst ICDI partners in Suriname are responsible for implementation of activities. VPSI focuses on improving institutional care, working with children with handicaps, and general child advocacy and training. Klimop primarily works in the field of early child development and the training of early childhood educators and reaches out to large groups of young women working or aspiring to work with young children. Finally, SPCS focuses on strengthening foster care in Suriname, offering an effective alternative to institutionalisation of children. Main achievements in 2007: •After a careful selection procedure, VPSI recruited a new director, Ms. Joyce Varsseveld, previously the director of the Ministry of Regional Development. Ms. Varsseveld is a lawyer by training and has many years experience in the development field. Having Ms. Varsseveld on board will allow VPSI to move ahead once again after the difficult period the Association has been through since the changes in management in 2006. With the arrival of the new director, VPSI immediately embarked on conducting a ‘Quick Scan’ of the human resources and management structure of the organization. The Quick Scan will shed light on, among others, the gap between available and required human resources (in light of the new multi-year programme). During 2007, activities in the field of capacity building of members, training of social workers and government lobby also continued, the latter concentrating particularly on the development of standards for alternative care for children in need. •SPCS has once again had a busy year: 44 children in need of foster care were identified and reported to the organization. 34 of these children were screened, of which 13 were eventually placed in suitable families. Nine ‘emergency cases’ were reported and four of these children were placed in either a temporary home or ‘crisis foster family’. Of the remaining ‘emergency’ children, SPCS was able to find a solution with the biological family (three children) and two were referred to the Suriname Youth Care Bureau. Psycho-motoric therapy and psychiatric care was provided to respectively four and two children, and care for foster and biological families also continued. As is the case with the other organizations supported through the CISP, this summary sketches only a fraction of what was accomplished in 2007. •In 2007, Klimop again devoted much of its time and energy to capacity building in the field of early childhood care and education (ECCE): 47 trainees completed a training in ECCE and provision of day-care and will sit their exams in the beginning of 2008; 41 trainees successfully completed a training in educational policy, and respectively 40, 30 and 34 trainees successfully finished the training in bookkeeping, financial management and communication skills. The distribution of Klimop books on ECCE has continued unabated, as has the supervision of trained day-care teams, particularly in reading with children. Klimop has found that as the organization is increasingly becoming better known, the demand for Klimop ECCE training also grows. A priority in the beginning of 2008 will be making an inventory of the training needs in the country. •Two new editions of the bi-annual newsletter ‘Young in the Caribbean’ (YitC) were published and distributed, reporting on a range of subjects such as an up and coming children’s book fair in Suriname, regional conferences on child and youth issues, new reading materials, research (such as that on corporal punishment and educational reform in Trinidad and Tobago), and projects aimed at improving child and youth welfare in the region. YitC is published and produced by Tabiki Productions in Paramaribo, under the overall supervision of ICDI and was originally set up to validate practice, knowledge and policies regarding children and youth in Suriname within a Caribbean context. YitC is also designed to embed Surinamese experience in the region and to build bridges between resource people and their activities. At the end of 2007, the ninth issue of YitC was produced and compared with the earlier versions, it has undergone remarkable progress. The layout is sharper, the editorial approach crisper and the mailing list has grown; the newsletter now reaches a large and varied group of professionals, political actors as well as business people. YitC enjoys considerable name recognition among Surinamese and Suriname-oriented NGOs in the Netherlands and pivotal people such as the first lady, Liesbeth Venetiaan, and Raul Dankoor, of the Suriname Office for Child Rights, regard YitC as an important medium. At a recent conference for child specialists in Jamaica, YitC was informally reviewed and assessed as a useful instrument with the potential of filling a gap. ICDI and Tabiki aim to continue to improve the content and reach of the newsletter. The current funding phase of the Children in Surinam Programme – covering the 2005-2007 period - came to a close in December 2007. The Schiefbaan Hovius Foundation has granted funds for an additional three years (2008-2010) for Klimop, SPCS and Stichting Projekten Christelijk Onderwijs Suriname (SPCOS/the Suriname Foundation for Christian Education Projects). The decision as to the continuation of funding for VPSI will be made following the meeting between the new director of VPSI and the board of the Schiefbaan Hovius Foundation in the beginning of 2008. Main challenges in 2007: Resolving the management problems within the VPSI proved to be difficult and it took a relatively long time before the association was able to identify and recruit a new director. Although one of the senior staff members agreed to act as interim director and should be applauded for doing a commendable job in what was a difficult time, the organization suffered from the lack of long-term leadership. Now there is a new and very capable director, it is expected the association will be able to rebuild the necessary trust amongst its member organizations and its partners in the Netherlands.

Project Manager Esther Miedema

Van Ongoing
Tot

Partner
•Association of Private Social Institutions (Vereniging van Particuliere Sociale Instellingen/VPSI), Paramaribo •Klimop (‘Climb up’), Paramaribo •Surinamese Foster Care Foundation (Stichting Pleeggezinnen Centrale Suriname/SPCS), Paramaribo

Donor
Schiefbaan Hovius

Project:

Disciplining without using violence

Project Manager Nico van Oudenhoven

Van July 2009
Tot July 2011

Partner
Gezin en Recht, Suriname

Donor
UTSN