Congo Hosts Community Of Good Practice

Thanks to the support of  ‘Apprentis d’ Auteuil ‘, our head of Partnerships and Technical Support Sebastien Le Mouëllic was recently able to attend a fascinating ‘Community of Good Practice’ seminar in Brazzaville, Congo, held on the subject of street children.

While he was there Sebastien met with a range of organizations and some fantastic staff from them who work across Africa and further afield, in countries including Senegal, Mali, Cameroon, Morocco, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, the Ivory Coast and Peru.

Sebastien takes center stage at the conference

Sebastien commented –

“It was an intense week of mutual learning, very rich in terms of sharing and of understanding new contexts across the breadth of all our work. We had  presentations on some  of the serious issues children are facing, for example children accused of witchcraft, child soldiers, “ Talibes” ( boys, usually from poor communities, who are sent too study the Quran  at a daara school) child labor in Peru, sex workers in Brazzaville, etc

Presenting the Friends model – many similarities across the work of all present

Although we work in different contexts and environments, many topics and challenges covered were very similar to ours, incorporating elements such as reintegration, training etc..

Visiting a drop-in center in Brazzaville

I was very pleased that the attendees showed a real interest in FI and in particular in our training models, and in ChildSafe and our community based approaches!! Thanks again to ‘Apprentis d’ Auteil’ for allowing this opportunity to take place, and for looking after us so well!”