POLICY ADVOCACY
Public policies inform government’s priorities, strategies and resource allocation. AICS has been consistent in advocating for responsive policies in line with a child rights based approach.
We promote child participation and ensure that there is nothing for the children without them. In processes that included drafting of the Children Bill 2019, commemoration of special days such as Day of African Child, International conferences jointly organized by CSOs and government, we have worked through Children Agenda Forum Network to provide platform for child participation. AICS launched the Scholar-Leadership program in 2019. We have the first cohort of 10 boys from Olkejuado boys secondary school and Moi Isinya girls who are receiving partial tuition support and mentorship in leadership and support in incubating the children’s individual projects at community level.
We have so far paid USD.2,000 towards their tuition fees, linked them with children in Gems Cambridge International school and supporting fundraising for community projects.
We contribute to realization of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a volunteer secretariat to the Children Agenda Forum – a network of child focused CSOs advocating for realization of child related SDG indicators. We use this convening role to influence policies and programs in Kenya, and build capacity of CSOs in addressing social and economic determinants of child wellbeing. These include family, women empowerment and gender equity issues.
We also empower duty bears by providing model interventions and evidence from data. We build capacity of civil society organizations in advocacy. Between 2015-2017, AICS and World Vision Kenya conducted training of CSOs in understanding national and county government budgeting process and how to influence these in the best interest of children.
As part of building capacity of the CSOs, AICS has organized a series of webinars to share knowledge on COVID-19 response in low income counties https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_Cl706BkNY&t=1845s and mapping CSOs contribution to community driven COVID-19 response https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnA1uwUP5wU&t=1054s.
We have contributed to strengthening child focused CSO’s response to COVID-19 through providing a web-map that indicates who is where (https://institutechildstudies.org/cso-covid-19-mapping/); hosting bi-weekly meetings of CSOs to identify advocacy issues and challenges in CSO response (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gia2olN83eg) and hosting webinars to share knowledge on what works in responding to COVID-19, teenage pregnancy among others emerging issues (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnA1uwUP5wU&t=1054s). We provide training programs to stakeholders in children sector. These are either sponsored or individual paid for courses (https://institutechildstudies.org/training)
- Support a child’s education -
We also rally the various sponsors, bought corporates and individuals to partner with us in supporting these children