PROJECTS
At St. George, we do not only provide temporary shelter to vulnerable children, but we also trace the family backgrounds of those children, try to understand the reasons that culminate in their situations, work our best to address any identifiable problems, reunite the children with their natural families, if we can (or put them up for fostering or adoption where necessary), and make follow-ups on their state of affairs and well-being. Through these efforts, we engage in multi-pronged approaches to ensure we deliver the services that the children and the families need. These activities culminate in different types of projects, some of which are outlined below.
INTERIM CARE CENTRE (ICC)
This is our main project as it is a daily activity of our program. This is where we get referral cases of vulnerable children who are either from the streets, or in street=connected situations, or being abused. We process and provide temporary shelter for them. We provide psycho-social support, family tracing, family and parenting support, reunification and monitoring to ensure there are recurrences.
COMMUNITY INTERVENTIONS
Through this project, we enroll children into formal and non-formal institutions, give them learning materials, help their parents with tools, fertilizers and capacity building for sustainable livelihoods. We also support vulnerable communities with the drilling of boreholes to provide water for their communities. We help construct latrines for them for community hygiene. We provide training to parents/caregivers on good parenting skills, safeguarding of children's rights, and environmental protection.
Advocacy
Under the Advocacy activities/project, we provide support to girls to encourage them to stay in schools through awareness-raising on menstrual hygiene and reproductive health. We also provide psycho-social support to street and street-connected children in the city centre using our Drop-In Centres as a safe space. We further build the capacity of street and street-connected children on child rights acts, strategy for street children and other services.
VILLAGE SAVINGS & LOANS ASSOCIATION (VSLA)
As a means of preventive measure, we provide support to women in the communities to save money from the sale of their garden harvests in the Village Savings & Loans Association box for the period of a year. Through this savings, women are financially empowered to sustain their families. They also have the ability to take loans from the savings, and to have community dialogues during their meetings. These activities help the families to keep their children from street situations.
AGRICULTURE
( formed and strengthened seven farming groups)
The Agricultural program is one of the most ambitious and innovative initiatives implemented by St George Foundation, the
Agricultural support project to smallholders farming groups aimed at contributing to food sufficiency, poverty reduction and
strengthens farming groups to be self-reliant and resilient in communities in the Western Area Rural District. The implementation
target mainly (60% of rural women farmers and 40% men farmers), the project seeks to address four (4) outcomes:
i. To improve food nutrition for vulnerable families
ii. To improve income generating activities especially for women farmers from harvesting their farm produce
iii. To increase innovative knowledge applications on farming skills and techniques for smallholder farmers
iv. To Strengthen gender gaps between men and women farmers by creating more equitable space for all.
WASH
The WASH project has been one of the most impactful interventions by St George Foundation, the project has help improve
transportable water supply to 3,500 people in communities and has reduced water-borne diseases with an increased knowledge in
sanitation and hygiene related procedures. The key outcomes of this intervention are to access clean water supply and improve
hygiene and sanitation for vulnerable communities in need of support through the drilling of boreholes water facilities and
maintenance through water management committees and the initiative of community ownership.
Radio Sensitization on missing, separated and unaccompanied children.
The Pikin Tok Radio on FM 91.1 based in Grafton has played a fundamental role in
raising awareness and sensitizing the general public on issues surrounding missing,
separated and unaccompanied children. The Radio has served as a mouth piece to
inform parents/caregivers, stakeholders, government, children and community
people on how to identify the government Ministries and Agencies responsible to
report cases of missing, separated and unaccompanied children. Based on feedbacks
received from text messages and call logs, 65% of people reported that they now
understand where to referred cases of missing, separated and unaccompanied
children to the Ministry of Gender and Children’s Affairs and the Family Support Unit of the Police.
St George Foundation management has provided free air time to heads of the Ministry and FSU on a monthly basis to discuss issues
related in addressing the situation of missing, separated and unaccompanied children
in the Western Area Rural District.
