About Us
The objective of this innovation is to form Children’s Welfare Hubs in communities through the Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ) member churches which track and respond to child protection issues by providing basic primary care and protection services. These hubs will be run by youth leaders (ages 20-35) and will be overseen by CCZ Program Officers and Church Leaders. CCZ has been using grassroots-church-based community programs in most of its projects and it has been proven to be an effective approach to make an impact and sustainable development to its target beneficiaries. The Welfare Hubs will provide five primary services including: birth registration assistance, health and nutrition monitoring and recording, education monitoring and tutorial assistance, information and help desk for child rights and protection, and connection of communities to service providers. The hubs will aim to bring basic services closer to the community, and complement government’s efforts to leave no one behind.
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This intervention is relevant and timely with regard to accelerating the delivery of services that foster improvement in the well-being of children in Zambia. On the one hand, it will address challenges of birth registration in the project areas, thus providing a platform for improved planning and improved access to quality social services such as education, health and sanitation. On the other hand, through the nutrition component, the project will contribute to addressing malnutrition which has remained a big development challenge in Zambia. Less than 11% of children aged between 0 – 4 have birth registration, while only 4% have a birth certificate (UNICEF). Further, 40% of children under age 5 in Zambia are stunted, 6 percent are wasted and 15 percent are underweight due to malnutrition (Zambia Demographic Health Survey, 2013/2014)
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