Growing up safe on Aruba and Curaçao

The ACT4ECC project aims to raise awareness and build the capacity of professionals who work with and for children. This will improve the prevention  and early detection of children in distress.

Toolkit  and Magazine

For Aruba and Curaçao, a digital toolkit has been produced. Ministries and (social) organizations can use these toolkits to train their professionals on child safety, thereby creating more awareness, knowledge, and skills. This way, children in distress can be helped as quickly as possible.

As part of the toolkit, an online magazine has been produced for each country. The goal is to raise awareness among policymakers in the healthcare, education, legal, and social sectors about preventing or detecting potential child safety issues and providing guidance on how to help children.

The Awareness raising and Capacity building Toolkit for European and Caribbean Children (ACT4ECC) project runs from March 2022 to February 2024. The project is coordinated by UNICEF Netherlands and implemented in collaboration with the local governments of Aruba and Curaçao, the University of Curaçao, Augeo Academy, and the Overseas Countries and Territories Association. The project is co-financed by the European Union's Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values program.

With the help of the toolkit, training is provided to 160 professionals so that they can better detect if a child is possibly in distress and what they can and should do. These tools enable early detection and prevention of child safety issues. The toolkit will also reach more than 5000 people after the project ends in February 2024, enhancing their awareness, knowledge, and/or skills.

Reach

This project contributes to the implementation of the EU Child Rights Strategy, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child throughout the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It contributes to the same level of protection for children across the European Union, including the overseas countries and territories, particularly Aruba and Curaçao.

At the end of the project, online meetings will be held to share the results with other European UNICEF offices and the Overseas Countries and Territories Association, as well as with the Intercountry Taskforce on Children's Rights, so that the knowledge gained can be shared. For this purpose, the "Collaborative Design Model" handbook has been written, describing how the collaboration to create this toolkit took place.

Collaboration with partners

UNICEF Netherlands helps governments and professionals improve the child protection system in Aruba and Curaçao. The goal is to ensure that children grow up in a safe environment without violence, allowing them to develop optimally and realize their talents. To achieve this, we work with ministries, social organizations (such as doctors and nurses, psychologists, social workers, and teachers), and of course, with children and young people themselves. In this project, we collaborate with:

• • Ministry of Justice and Social Affairs of Aruba
  • Ministry of Social Development, Labor, and Welfare of Curaçao
  • University of Curaçao Dr. Moises da Costa Gomez
  • Augeo Academy
  • Overseas Countries and Territories Association