CRANE Annual Report 2016-2017 Final

Children in Families
Over the past two years, CRANE has worked
to promote family based care in Uganda with a
desire to see all children living under the care of
safe and secure families as God intended it.
The project had 3 main outcomes. These include:
20 churches trained and actively participating
in family based care initiatives
20 CCIs to change practices to conform to
government requirements
Strengthen the network of churches and Child
Care Institution (CCI) ministries who learn and
share together
In the past two years, the following has been
achieved:
Churches
A pastors’ conference was held in May 2016 that
brought together over 120 church leaders under
the theme “Embrace the Child”. Following it, five
trainings for church leaders were held where they
were shown how to use the “Why Children Matter”
pastors’ toolkit. As pastors use this toolkit in their
churches, they will challenge their congregations to
promote family based care.
In the last 2 years, 37 children have found foster
families through the church and 17 parents are
waiting for children to foster. Of the 37 fostered
children, 10 have been fostered by families in the
churches that we are working directly with while 27
children by families in churches attached to the
CCIs. The message of family based care is beginning
to take root in the church as a result of our
engagements with church leaders, child protection
committees, and family strengthening groups. We
are seeing the church as increasingly becoming the
source of foster families for children whose families
cannot be traced.
Through family strengthening groups, child and
family protection groups and saving schemes
interventions in churches, people have now
appreciated the importance of the church in the
wellbeing of the community members and in
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9 CRANE Annual Report 2016 - 2017