Defence for Children International-Sierra Leone as part of their support to the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs, have donated food items to the children at the Approved School and Remand Home. The items included three bags of rice, sugar, butter, Maggie and two hundred and fifty thousand Leones for the purchase of bread and condiments. Bulk of the donation was made last week Friday and other goodies have followed since then.
The Children at both detention centres are thankful to DCI-SL for the timely donation as there was no food at the centres for days before DCI-SL arrived with the donation.
According to the DCI programme manager, the donation was to ensure that children’s right to food which is as important as their right to education and development is also supported. He further motivated the children to be challenged by the efforts of different organizations for speedy reformation and better behaviour even after they would have left the centres.
Remand Home and Approved School are detention centres for children in the juvenile justice system and are managed by the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and children’s Affairs. One of the challenges that the ministry faces with supporting children in these centres is feeding. Sierra Leone being a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has a responsibility of ensuring that children in detention are provided with all necessary support to ensure their wellbeing and reformation.
The Ministry in appreciation of the donation recognised DCI as an organization that strongly supports the ministry in addressing juvenile justice issues. One of the children while thanking DCI noted that he now realises that there are people other than the Ministry who care so much about children.
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