Civil Society in Action for Protection of Child Rights in Albania- Conference on “Best practices, challenges and lessons learned”

Save the Children, Terre des hommes and the European Union Delegation in Albania have jointly organized the Conference focusing on lessons learned best practices, challenges and effective solutions to enhance the protection of children rights in Albania. This Conference marks the two and a half years of ‘Civil Society in Action for Protection of Child Rights in Albania’ project achievements in strengthening the role of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) involved in the field of child protection  by enhancing their skills through grants implemented at local level, capacity building , networking and knowledge dissemination. 

Through the sub-granting scheme, 21,171 children with special attention in the inclusion of the most vulnerable , whose rights have been violated or at risk of being abused, children with disabilities, roma children, children living in rural areas and children  in street situation, received more adequate holistic and systematic protection and assistance. 2,388 proffessionals (police, education, health, social services, child protection workers) and parents were trained and supported to increase their capacities on how to identify, refer and provide support to children in need of protection.

A network of CSOs was established and is actively functioning aiming to advocate and monitor the implementation of the child rights situation at local and national level. Focusing in the most in need areas, 28 civil society organizations, in 25 municipalities across the country, were actively engaged and better responded in the monitoring of children rights implementation in Albania.

Their cooperation with public institutions, teachers, parents and other community members led to a better coordination among stakeholders and contributed to an increased public accountability allowing them to make more informed decisions in terms of  improvements in legislative framework, service provision, social behaviour change  and empowerment of children and youth to advocate for their rights.

 “Subgranting was a pilot scheme implemented by EU. I am happy that we managed to respond to children needs in a large scale and distributed all over Albania, especially in remoted areas. EU is committed to continue to support CSO’s through subgranting schemes in several areas including child rights and child protection. We appraise your efforts and count on you to continue your work at local level in adressing and responding to children needs and advocating toward national institutions for child rights and child protection issues” said Erol Akdag, EU representative.

The conference took place in Tirana on June 8^th  with the attendance of 70 civil society representatives, who implement actions and deliver services on child rights and child protection field, child rights and child protection practicioners, policy makers and child protection authorities. The participants highlighted the impact achieved through 578,833 EURO project grant financed by EU and implemented by Save the Children and Terre des hommes.