Jordan Times
Monday, November 20, 2006
Queen Rania Family and
Child Centre receives top prize
AMMAN (JT) — Her Majesty Queen Rania accompanied Urmila Nandey Nathan, first
lady of Singapore, to the Jordan River Foundation’s Queen Rania Family and Child
Centre on Sunday, the World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse.
The Queen and the Singaporean first lady toured the facility, which received the
2006 Prevention of Child Abuse Prize awarded by the Geneva-based Women’s World
Summit Foundation.
The centre is a member of an international NGO coalition, created by the
foundation in 2001 in order to make the World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse
a global call to action.
The centre shared the first prize with the Tulir Centre for the Prevention and
Healing of Child Sexual Abuse in India.
The two centres were chosen from among more than 700 governmental and
non-governmental organisations in some 110 countries around the world. Each
centre will receive $3,000 in prize money.
Launched in July 2005 by Queen Rania, the centre is pioneering a new innovative
approach to an Arab model of a community centre, which provides training and
support to families at risk.
The centre, which offers much needed education and training services to
underprivileged communities, models quality caregiving and “educaring” services
for replication in the region.
The outreach efforts of centre, located in Jabal Nasser, were expanded in 2005
and awareness sessions were conducted in all of the Kingdom’s governorates. A
total of 763 professionals attended 46 training workshops throughout the year,
and 5,943 people benefited from 131 awareness lectures held in local
communities. Over 3,227 children participated in training programmes held at the
centre’s facilities, and over 1,472 children benefited from presentations of “Salhouf,”
a puppet show developed to raise awareness among children.
The Jordan River Foundation is spearheading the cause of child abuse through its
Child Safety Programme, which provides intervention, prevention and training as
core activities geared towards addressing issues of sexual, physical and
emotional abuse and neglect. These activities are targeted to various segments
of society based upon the immediate and long-term needs of the children,
families and stakeholders within the Jordanian social and cultural context.
The programme is designed to provide comprehensive and integrated services for
victims of child abuse and their families. The objectives are to enhance
positive child-rearing practices to protect children and to identify, confront
and eliminate various forms of abuse through awareness, prevention and
rehabilitation programmes.
The centre, which dedicated the World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse to
increasing awareness on the importance of child safety among mothers, caregivers
and children in the country, is mobilising several local entities to celebrate
the day along with the international community.
The centre also issued a letter of support, in cooperation with Parliament,
stressing the importance of keeping child welfare a top priority of the
government and civil society organisations’ agendas, and urging local entities
to play an active role in creating and disseminating effective rehabilitative
and preventative programmes to address the problem of child abuse
comprehensively.