Meeting on parenting in Tanzania
On Tuesday 31 March ICS organised, together with UNICEF, Bernard van Leer Foundation and Parenting in Africa Network, a meeting on parenting and family support in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania. These four parties are going to help the Tanzanian government improving their policy on this topic. It was the first time that policy makers, practitioners and representatives of the United Nations came together to discuss this subject. And that's not just it. There is a solid plan to improve coordination of the several, already existing initiatives and to bundle them to create a form of synergy.
Rearing children is not always easy, certainly not when poverty, violence and great inequality between men and women are part of your daily life. In Kenya and Tanzania it is a commonly held belief that children should be raised very strictly and with the aid of physical punishment. Parents have been raised this way themselves, pass on what they have learned and are not aware of positive alternatives. ICS would like to show parents and grandparents, and let them experience, that there are alternatives. And that a positive approach can have positive effects on all members of the family. Children that have had a generally happy and safe childhood often grow up to become positive and stable adults.
