Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260
- 263)
TUESDAY 27 JUNE 2000
MR MARK
GORMAN, MS
FRANCESCA SIMMS
AND DR
DOUGLAS WEBB
260. Do you not consider that it is the main
responsibility of the state to provide any education to children,
particularly to orphaned children?
(Dr Webb) Absolutely. We have been saying that for
the last 20 years but still we are seeing the contraction of the
education sector, so we have to look at alternative opportunities
or put a huge mass of investment into the education training,
recruitment and training and infrastructure. The infrastructure
is not there. Schools do not have roofs and that kind of thing.
(Ms Simms) Probably this links in with other ideas
concerning regeneration of traditional African systems. What one
has to do is to mobilise the community. The education that is
happening in formal schools is very poor. Obviously you need to
have that but there is great potential in the community to be
mobilised, which can be done through various innovative ways such
as using the radio or various systemic methods to revive and develop
the education provided for each child by extended family and community
members. African extended families and communities have or had
a well developed traditional education system of their own. Extended
family members taught children through example, projects and encouragement
a number of very relevant skills such as agriculture, care of
animals, child care, cooking, pottery, art, music, poetry, philosophy,
ethics, principles and practice of community care of others and
usually also a trade. It was a broad general "progressive"
education except that it did not teach children to read or write.
We could try to regenerate such traditional extended family and
community education systems and also perhaps teach children to
read and write by radio or postal methods. There are all sorts
of innovative ideas that could be used, building on what Africa
has instead of importing what we have here. Our systems often
do not work in Africa, because it is often outdated models of
the system that are exported and we do not have the resources
to do it properly. So you have, for example, 200 children in a
class. More so, I would say this is the case with developing community
social support systems and at some stage I would like to point
out what I would like to see done there, more so than in education.
Chairman
261. Would you like to say it now?
(Ms Simms) For community social support systems, it
is clear what works. There have been a few very good projects
which have worked like the Chief Chirumbira Project in Zimbabwe.
There has also been a successful project in Uganda (the child
social welfare project in Rakai)and this is mobilising the community
to provide for the needs of AIDS orphans. Africa has a wonderful
extended family and community system. That needs to be supported
and developed. It is a system involving the traditional leaders-the
village chiefs, and they have the power to mobilise volunteers
in a situation of crisis. AIDS is a crisis. There needs to be
a national coordinating body which implements an agreed national
policy for children in need from a low cost centre for the development
of community based projects-which will provide training and coordination.
What you need to do is to use the few trained social work personnel
there are—and there are very few-in a systematic way around
the whole of the country with a small, low cost resource centre
in each area from which you are going to do outreach work at grass
root level, which will be mobilising the community structures
that there are. You will be having meetings, do systemic work,
education work including through the radio. You will promote a
committee for every sub-area and for every village and a volunteer
for every child in need. Every child in need will have a named
primary care giver in the extended family and a care plan for
that child, identifying what that child's needs are. It will then
identify what resources are needed and how these can be accessed.
The care plan for each child would be recorded at the resource
centre as would regular reviews of the plan. This will also give
an idea what resources are needed in that area which can be put
forward for development. I suggest that these will be likely to
be income generating projects, employment projects and material
aid for families, and community based rehabilitation for disabled
children as well as community-based day special education for
disabled children who are unable to attend normal school. People
to trace families of children who are lost, abandoned or in institutions
are likely to be needed, so that an appropriate care plan can
be made for the child in the extended family. The centre will
keep a register with care plans for children in need and disabled
people. It will develop projects to develop support including
bereavement support for AIDS-affected families and children—developing
community support systems using all sorts of innovative methods
and systemic work to get the community to provide help and bereavement
support, as is the culture. Also using the radio to provide support
and bereavement therapy for AIDS affected families including AIDS
orphans, who could also listen to educational programmes. All
sorts of bereavement therapy methods could be used through the
radio or by post, and the radio could also convey information
concerning prevention of AIDS and to dissipate stigma. In addition
to that for the few children who the extended families cannot
care for with these care plans, you need to set up locally based
foster care systems. All these developments need to be done systematically
in every area of every country. It would not be expensive because
you are using the community systems that are there and volunteers.
This has worked in a number of countries and it needs to be replicated
elsewhere using the community as a partnership in developing these
systems.
262. Dr Webb, do you think that is too idealistic
and not practical?
(Dr Webb) The problem is with these kinds of schemes
is the replication, saying, "We have something that works
in places X, Y and Z" and actually taking it to scale. We
can look at each individual programme and say that this works
and this does not work but what we are finding is, in the context
of decentralisation which we are working in now, this problem
of taking things forward is far more difficult because the central
authorities are not taking that lead role in taking these small
scale projects, saying, "They work. Let us take them to another
place". It becomes very difficult to effect that movement
to other areas. We are finding that there is a proliferation of
models, of pilots, which have been demonstrated to be effective
in various ways, to use community resources, but it is actually
taking it to scale that is such a challenge. The lack of central
capacity in government to do that is probably the critical barrier.
Mr Rowe: In India, there are now some
very good examples of successful projects not unlike this which
have begun to be generalised through the use of a central training
resource.
Chairman
263. We have to stop here. We have a lot of
other questions but a number of us have other commitments right
now. We would like to thank you very much. The imaginative ideas
and the type of working directly with the communities which are
affected, reinforcing their systems are obviously the way that
we must move ahead. You have given us very important messages.
(Ms Simms) The European Children's Trust has been
implementing these methods in eastern Europe. They are not just
ideas. They have been implemented elsewhere and would be much
easier to implement in Africa because the structures are there
to do so.
Chairman: Can I thank Mr Gorman, Francesca
Simms and Douglas Webb very much indeed on behalf of the Committee
for giving us your ideas this morning.
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