Stories: Children, Community, Future

Hoa is an official at the People’s Committee of Tay Phong commune. She has been working in partnership with ChildFund to implement child rights and child protection program since 2011.

Hoa has worked in child protection project supported by ChildFund since 2011

“In the past, there was not much for the children to do outside school hours in our commune. They could only accompany their parents to work and play by themselves near farming areas,” Hoa retells.

Seeing the value of children’s participation in interest groups and clubs for their own development, ChildFund has supported to establish 10 child clubs in Tay Phong commune. As members of the club, children had the opportunity to play together, practiced their rights and learned about child abuse, risk and injury prevention.

Children enjoying child club activities

“The children got so excited when participating in the club’s activities because they were able to learn about child rights and essential life skills in an interactive and fun way such as group games, role play and discussion.” Hoa shares.

Child-to-child communications activities have been introduced by ChildFund to every child club. After children were selected to be part of a core-group training, they set up and conducted all the club activities themselves. Refresher trainings were organised every year so that the club leaders could have updated knowledge about issues related to children which they can then pass on to their fellow peers.

“We will try to keep the child clubs running for the sake of our own children. We believe that the longer the children stay with their clubs, the more can they learn and grow,” Hoa shows her enthusiasm towards maintaining ChildFund-supported child clubs.

ChildFund also supported the local community to reinforce the child protection system from grassroots level by improving its planning and reporting procedures. Hoa confirms: “When something came up, each of the members in our system knows clearly their responsibilities, how we should address, report and solve the case”.

Having been working with ChildFund in long term, Hoa confides: “During my time with ChildFund, I attained important knowledge of child rights and child protection. I also learned to apply child-friendly methods when working with children and youth. These skills and knowledge helped me a lot in my work,” Hoa says.