Hai District Commissioner, Dr Norman Sigalla
In his welcoming remarks to UNICEF delegation from Canada and Tanzania, he said since services for those children cut across multiple sectors, the programme is implemented in a coordinated way to ensure services are provided to children in a holistic manner.
“This has been possible through establishment of multi-sectoral team representing key sectors responsible for young children development, namely education, health, social welfare and community development,” Dr Sigalla told the visitors.The DC said multi-sectoral coordination teams are in place at district, ward and community levels, adding that the district team comprises of 15 member from the department of social welfare, community development and education; the medical officer, clinical officer, NGO representatives; nutrition office and the planning officer.
Dr Sigalla further informed the visitors that to ensure equity in accessing services for disadvantaged children, the district managed to identify 7,483 Most Vulnerable Children (MVC) in 55 villages and 11 urban streets between 2006 and 2008 and supported them with school fees, food and clothes, in collaboration with NGO’s and community contributions.
“MVC’s Committees were formed in 66 villages and MVC’s village fund established to empower families with cash grants,” the DC told the UNICEF officials, adding that currently the district was advocating for care and support for orphans to be addressed at family level with concurrent closure of orphanage care centres, which was still on-going, in order to achieve the target of zero by 2015.
Dr Sigalla told the visitors that in order to improve community understanding of child rights and care, the district has established Community Justice Facilitators’ programmes in 10 wards and trained 132 community justice facilitators to ensure that issues, such as child abuse, child exploitation and negligence were addressed at community level applying national guidelines.
In an effort to improve maternal and new-borns’ health, the district has increased service provision by establishing more health facilities from 40 to 44 and mobile clinics from 9 to 15 between 2007 and 2010 in collaboration with other satellites programmes by other partners, such as Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric Aids Foundation (EGPAF) and ENGENDER HEALTH. In addition, two ambulances have been procured this year to serve similar purposes.
The DC also revealed that the number of pregnant women receiving tetanus (TT) vaccines increased from 4,819 to 4,978 through utilization of trained Village Resource Persons (VRP), adding that VRP engage freely in a dialogue with expectant and breast-feeding mothers to motivate them on benefits of breast-feeding to their infants, including the utilization of ECD Counselling Cards.
“To-date, we have empowered 57 health workers and 10 district trainers despite inadequate means of transport as well as human resource for monitoring and supervision,” he beamed.Responding to the brief by the DC, UNICEF official in Tanzania, Ms Dorothy Rozga commended Hai district functionaries for leading in the development of child protection system in Tanzania, saying it was a model worth emulating by other districts in the country.
By PETER TEMBA, Tanzania Daily News
