Children corners very crucial in child development

By Patrick Ndawala – Mana.

District Commissioner (DC) for Machinga, Rosemary Nawasha said children corners play a crucial role in the development of children.

She said this when she opened the training on Wednesday at Nsanama for 50 care givers from Traditional Authority (TA) Mlomba in case management and effective management of children corners with support from the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF).

Nawasha said through children corner platforms children are given total care, support and protection.

“Children’s Corners serve as an important safe space to develop the abilities of children. It is through this platform that children raise issues that are important to them,” the DC said.

Nawasha urged care givers to put the knowledge and skills gained during the training into practice.

She said realizing the need to build the capacity of care givers, the council in its district development plans has put in place a skills development strategy for children’s service providers.

The DC asked other organizations to support the Council in the implementation of the development plan.

One of the care givers, Simplex Nakwale from Group Village Head Nyanya, said he was very happy with the knowledge and skills gained during the training.

“I will not be the same because after the training because the knowledge and skills gained here will help me to support children better. Previously it was so hard for me to deliver lessons,” he said.

Nakwale asked the council to continue training more care givers, saying there are many caregivers who need such trainings.

Assistant District Social Welfare Officer for Machinga, Lawrence Matiti said as of 2019, the district had 851 untrained caregivers out of the total 1,428 caregivers.

He added that there are 534 community based child care centres where 39,870 children are accessing Early Childhood Development (ECD) services.

Matiti disclosed that out of the 39,870 children who are accessing ECD lessons, 20,936 are female and 18,948 are male.

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