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Yeukai Karengezeka Herald Correspondent
Homegrown solutions are essential in promoting positive parenting to prevent and respond to child protection violations in Zimbabwe, the top official dealing with the matter said recently.
Officiating at a positive parenting roundtable workshop held in Harare, the Ministry of Public Service, Labour, and Social Welfare Social Development and Disability Affairs Chief director, Dr Edmos Mtetwa said we are a people with own values.
Dr Mtetwa said dealing with parenting issues at the grassroots level could bring transformation in raising responsible children. But donors needed to bring help that was compatible with local cultures.
“Positive parenting should be contextualised and premised upon our culture and values. Therefore, it is important that whatever donor help that comes should be compatible with our norms and values,” he said.
“We must go out there in different areas and get knowledge from the elderly who have managed to raise responsible children for the past generations.”
Social vices affecting children of today could only be dealt with starting from the family level.
“We need to tackle such social vices affecting our children from the grassroots level. Their upbringing should be in order and in sync with our socio-cultural ethos so that we raise sociable, disciplined and accountable children,” said Dr Mtetwa.
He reinforced to need to have tangible programmes that strengthened the family institution starting with the marriage itself. Government was going to consolidate what has been learnt about positive parenting to come up with a universal guideline model to be used countrywide.
He called upon donors and development partners to assist the ministry in its initiative to protect children from violence.
The event was organised by Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Parenting For Lifelong Health (PLH),Global Parenting Initiative, Clowns Without Borders and Plan International.
Speaking at the same occasion, CRS head of programmes Mr Richard Savo said they had been working with Government and other development partners to come up with interventions on parenting under the PLH initiative that has benefited over 70 000 families.
“Our first project, the Pathways project, funded by PEPFAR through USAID, was implemented from 2018 to 2022, reaching out to more than 70 000 families with positive parenting interventions in 10 districts of Zimbabwe,” he said.
CRS, in collaboration with the ministry, was participating in the global study, Parenting for Lifelong Health Scale-Up of Parenting Evaluation Research (PLH-SUPER).
The PLH was founded as an initiative in 2012 in collaboration with UNICEF and the World Health Organisation to develop, test, and share non-commercialised and low-cost parenting programmes to reduce violence against children and to improve child wellbeing in low- and middle-income countries.
Meanwhile, in partnership with the University of Cape Town, CRS is working on adapting the PLH for Young Children programme for the prevention of violence against children in primary schools in Zimbabwe.
The project is being undertaken in collaboration with Plan International.
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