Makerere University Child Health Development Centre (CHDC) with support from the Children’s Rights and violence prevention fund (CVRPF) has embarked on a campaign to strengthen families through proper parenting among the East African countries. 

The campaign is being done in partnership with the Centre for Transformative Parenting, a local NGO in Kampala, whose main aim is to prevent violence against children and spousal conflict. 

Speaking during a weeklong regional reflection meeting on parenting at Botanical Beach Hotel in Entebbe, Dr Godfrey Siu, the leader of the Parenting for Respectability Project (PFR) at Makerere University, said that this program is one of the few responding to the growing demand for research-based parenting solutions to end violence against children and spouses in families in Uganda and the region. 

Participants in a group discussion during the regional parenting meeting. (All Photos by Agnes Nantambi)

He observed that there are very few countries with evidence-based parenting programs, noting that Uganda is very lucky to have a home-grown evidence-based Programme which can strengthen families. 

The PRF program, he said, was developed following all the critical stages of research and has undergone rigorous evaluation to generate evidence effectiveness. 

 “For the last eight years, Makerere University in conjunction with the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom and the Medical Research Council Uganda, have been developing the PfR Program. 

The program addresses parenting issues, including the challenges parents have in raising children like violent parenting, how to build positive relationships with children, and how to relate better with one’s spouse,” he said. 

A participant makes a presentation during the regional training on parenting at Botanical Beach Hotel in Entebbe.

According to Siu, the program was implemented in Wakiso and in Amuru district in Northern Uganda, from where they learnt about the perceived acceptability and impact of the program. 

“In these two districts, we learnt that the program was highly impactful. We have observed that the parents who participated in the program improved their relationship with their children significantly, and their spouses." This, he said, has brought about a reduction in violence in families. 

Because of the successes in the program, partners operating in Uganda noticed the value of parenting and requested Makerere to scale it up across the region,” he revealed. 

Children’s Rights and violence prevention fund (CVRPF), a funding agency that provides grants to different organizations working as a group to form clusters, now spread in Lira, Mubende, Kasese and Kabarole districts, decided to fund the scale-up of the program in Kenya and Tanzania. 

He explained that to enhance proper scaling up, CRVPF collaborated with the Centre for Transformative Parenting a local partner that can do capacity building to help funded organizations to understand the Parenting model to scale up the program in Kenya and Tanzania. 

Siu blamed poor parenting on a lack of skills, especially for young couples who enter marriages at tender ages without knowing how to parent their children. 

“There are no schools for parenting, but parents can attend parenting sessions to address their skills gaps, including knowing how to deal with children without being violent,” he explained.    

Fasil Kidane, the founder and Executive Director of CVRPF said the intermediary Organisation raises funds from big donors to support small partners in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania to end violence. 

The Organisation which was incorporated in 2015 he said has so far injected about $25m and is also working towards ending violence against teenagers which has escalated child marriages. 

“We have 210 partners in the four countries and we work on three programs at least through giving grants, and also build the capacity of the partners. 

Participants attending the regional training on parenting at Entebbe Botanical beach Hotel.

The focus of the program is to prevent violence, since we work with families’ communities and schools, our partners train parents, engage the fathers and train them to reduce violence at household levels," he explained. 

Many countries in Africa have conducted studies on violence against children and found its prevalence to be very high, affecting the growth and well-being of children. 

Carolyn Byekwaso, the Project Coordinator PfR said the program has a strong gender socialization and social norm change component. 

She added that the program was aligned to the national and global policy framework, on early childhood development and male engagement. She said the program had reached over 20,000 families in 10 different districts in the country. 

Namutebi added that the Centre for Transformative Parenting is supporting the implementation of the program in Kenya and Tanzania, and attributed the success of the program to factors like the model of training peer facilitators selected among the parents and the increasing concern that parents have to improve family respectability.