2nd National Conference on Orphans and Other ... - FHI 360

GROUP 4
Determine how and
why Namibia should
record its OVC and
who should do this
Facilitators:
Verona du Preez, Assistant Programme Manager, SWIS, DDSWS, MoHSS
Helen Mouton, Assistant Programme Manager, Specialised Social Welfare
Services, DDSWS
Rapporteurs:
Verona du Preez; Helen Mouton; Johan van Wyk, Data Analyst, MoHSS
KEY STRATEGY
Establish a national database on OVC for effective service delivery.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Co-ordinate all stakeholders who collect data on OVC.
2. Raise awareness on and build capacity of all stakeholders in the collection of OVC data.
3. Provide financial resources for the development of the OVC database.
4. Ensure effective monitoring and evaluation instruments for the database.
COMMENTARY AND ADDITIONAL POINTS IN THE REPORT-BACK
The group as a whole wants a registering or recording system. We looked at the advantages and
disadvantages of this. Prior to the group session the facilitators looked at how OVC are registered
in other African countries that do this to determine why they are doing it and the advantages and
disadvantages they have experienced.
On the question of who should record OVC, the group recommends that this be done from
grassroots level up – by the volunteers, traditional leaders, villagers and CBOs at village/constituency
level, and by the people working with OVC at regional level.
We also looked at what organisations are currently doing for OVC and how they are recording
OVC. Each organisation represented in the group (e.g. CAA, the Church Benevolence Board and
Lifeline/Childline) gave a brief overview of the information they record and what they do with it.
The MoHSS representatives gave an overview of how this ministry manages its information system.
It records information on all MoHSS social services. The group felt that the MoHSS system is too
sophisticated and has too much detail for the purposes of an OVC register. We came up with a
very simple data form reflecting only the child’s initials, the name of his/her school, his/her home
address and basic particulars about family members and primary caregivers.
The group asks why all organisations cannot simply feed the data captured for their small-scale
systems into the one existing large-scale (national) system. Can we not simply co-ordinate all current
recording efforts to get the information we want? This way we can be assured of having just one
system that gives us all the information we need, deriving from grassroots level. This is our key
strategy.
68 <strong>2nd</strong> <strong>National</strong> <strong>Conference</strong> on Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children – Windhoek, Namibia, 25-27 June 2002: Full Report