CHILD SAFEGUARDING AND PROTECTION TRAINING IN THE ARCHDIOCESE OF NAIROBI
Pope Francis’s message to a conference on promoting child safeguarding in the time of Covid-19 and beyond, urged all the members of the Lay Associations taking part in the conference to renew formation of all those who have educational responsibilities and who work in environments with minors, in the Church, in society, and in the family.
Following this call by the Holy See, Archbishop Philip Anyolo the Archbishop of Nairobi Archdiocese directed all Pontifical Missionary Childhood (PMC) animators, the Missionary Youth Movement (MYM) animators and Catechists across the Archdiocese to go through training on child safeguarding and protection.
The Pontifical Mission Society Office and Youth office in partnership with Tangaza University College have been having the training which will run up to July in the deaneries in the Archdiocese. Fr. Edwin Hunja, the Archdiocesan Youth Chaplain says, “There have been challenges in the past within our groups and often the animators have little knowledge on knowing how to help our children, this training coming as a requirement for the universal church is timely for us and working with the Institute of Youth studies in Tangaza University College is advantageous for us in the coursework they offer at the university.” He further says in the near future the Archdiocese hopes to conduct additional training to the clergy so that the children are helped to reach their full potential and as a society we can protect them better.
The child protection and safeguarding course offered in Tangaza is offered as a short course, a certificate and bachelors. The institute has however tailored a short course for the Archdiocese to give basic competencies to the animators. The training scheduled in three parts begun in March and has so far run across the deaneries for the first part of the coursework. The coursework is to conclude in July 2022.
The trainer, Dr. Catherine Warari a lecture in Tangaza University College says, “People lack knowledge on identifying these issues with children, yet the cases have become rampant both at home and at school and also in our Church. We are here to enhance the competencies of this group’s skills by giving them basic competencies to safeguard and protect children, this means they will know how to identify a child in distress, give basic counseling where required and refer them to the right entities should the case be far-reaching.”
The MYM animator, Mr. Augustine Mutuku during a training session held on 3rd April 2022 in Ruaraka deanery at Holy Mary Mother of God, Githurai parish said, “This training will help us be better than before, we are about 80 MYM animators in Ruaraka deanery who joined through voluntary basis. The scaffolding training manual for the MYM is a tool which will guide us in executing what we have learnt and will continue to learn by the end of this training.”
Among the PMC animators present in the training, Mrs. Nancy Ndung’u expressed her joy from adding that the issues in the deanery had become rampant and lack of skills on how to deal with them had become an unresolved issue. She said the thought to empower the animators was timely and will be effective in their role in the mission of the Church which is evangelization.
