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Summary: The core work of CAFCHIN lies in the concentration of child protection, survival and development services through promoting the two legal and international instruments: The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of a Child and The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
The care for children in need (CAFCHIN) is a local rooted community, family oriented, child centered response organisation. ('Care' stands for Collective Assistance Revealed Education for Children in Need). It was formed in 1993 and later registered in 1994 by the Registrar of Societies. It originated through collective responses by families and joint village to village involvement in the Magodi chiefdom, and later extended its resources to other chiefdom. The core work of CAFCHIN lies in the concentration of child protection, survival and development services through promoting the two legal and international instruments: The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). While working for the children with the families affected by HIV/AIDS, CAFCHIN's objectives as follows: To facilitate protection of children from dangers of sexual abuse, drugs and alcohol under the main activities implemented under the objective; Advocacy on child abuse, human rights environment and education; Psychosocial counseling for orphans and other vulnerable children and their families affected by HIV/AIDS and poverty CAFCHIN received a grant from the International HIV/AIDS Alliance which has allowed it to pursue the following objectives: to improve knowledge, develop attitudes and promote practices that prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS and STIs to young people; to measure the project's impact in the community by monitoring the activities conducted; as well as to bring about HIV/AIDS awareness training for the Peer Education Youths Groups. Workshops were conducted, which brought together forty participants from four chiefdoms, Mphamba, Magodi, Mwase and Nthembwe . These were targeted in the 1st phase while Kapichila chiefdom was targeted in the 2nd phase. The duration of the workshops was two days. The workshop objectives were to strengthen care and support for young people affected by HIV/AIDS by providing life skills training, and to increase HIV/AIDS awareness among youth peer education and through them, to the wider community AIDS awareness. The method followed was group discussion/ learning as trainees increased impact. Six hundred odd people were reached through drama, songs, HIV/AIDS education/prevention talks from the youths participated in the training. The youths were sensitising villages' members within their means of reach on the urgent need of effective prevention and care of HIV/AIDS measures responses at individual, family and community levels. The Youth Peer Education Groups formed other village groups within their neighbourhood to participate in drama, songs and talks in order to raise awareness on HIV/AIDS prevention and education. In addition, the Youth Peer Education Group sent reports to the district office programme officer in order to help with measuring the impact of the programme. The Youth Peer Education Group raised awareness on HIV/AIDS, child abuse, drug and sexual abuse, gender-based violence in families and rights of every child at community events. These were done to reach a wide range of individuals in the areas organised such the above events. These aimed to also strengthen the group communication skills and village communication on HIV/AIDS. Some youth peer education groups were invited by rural health centres, especially in the Magodi chiefdom, Mzwalo, Lunzi and Malandula; Rural Health Centers in the Mwase Chiefdom; as well as visiting Chilola. The event promoted the World Aids day where five children clinic and some antenatal clinics participated. 10, 000 IEC materials were distributed in the local languages. The materials translated was into Chitumbuka and the Chinyanja language, which sends a message of how drama influences behavioural changes and gives the knowledge for some of those participating youth groups, individuals who attended the drama performances, to even take it with them in other meetings. Ten people met five times for five full days to analyse the material and translate it. The material was first discussed with community management teams before the project started on at no cost and these brought out the team of ten people to work on the final translations. The message expressed in this material tried to be reflective of the community youth groups. Equally by informing the media to cover drama, dances and songs performed by these groups, they were reminded to what they need to do or not do as well as what educational/preventive messages can help peer educators. Ten bicycles were also procured locally in Lundazi to help youth peer educators to outreach services The bicycles helped peer groups too to send reports to the programme office. The drama performance, procurement of bicycles and the reproduction of material have gone well. Performances have boosted motivation and by doing so the sustainability of the group spirit which bought about some drums and initiated some garden project There is an area youth peer educators committee to co-ordinate the awareness and psychosocial counseling responses in Magodi as well as the education needed to know about irrigation garden and farm land, which was obtained by the youth in the Mwase - Nthembwe chiefdom.