Almost 7 out of 10 children living in Charitable Children’s Institutions (CCIs) within Uasin Gishu County prefer to be reintegrated with their families, a report has revealed.
The report which was developed following research by Moi University commissioned by SOS Children’s Villages further reveals that the community, is initially reluctant to accept the integrated children from CCIs, but later gets adapted.
Speaking during the launch of the report at an Eldoret hotel, Moi University researcher and lecturer Dr. Willis Abuya said of the 96 children interviewed, almost 70 percent said they would rather be with their families.
The research done in April 2021 was aimed at finding out the needs and challenges of reinterred children, where a majority named poverty as a severe challenge, followed by family relation problems, environmental and cultural problems as other issues they faced, but they were not severe.
“On community acceptability, the report found out that at initially, the community was not ready to receive the children, but after some time, it adopted and the children were fitting in to an extent that they would go out on social functions,” said Dr. Abuya.
“This clearly shows that integration needs to be done but the community needs to be sensitized that the children are coming back,” he added.
During the research, 96 children out of the over 100 successfully reintegrated were interviewed, with 282 members of the public and a number of focus groups also involved.
SOS Children’s Villages – Kenya Program Director Francis Muthoma said they will use the research findings to develop policies on how to better address the issue of children’s reintegration.
“As SOS, we believe in policymaking that is informed by data and research, that is why we commissioned the research so that from the result we will be able to formulate policy and implementation strategy,” noted Muthoma.
He mentioned the need to prepare children before re-integration as one of the key findings in the report.
