Traoré narrates his tale on how the Skilful Parenting program saved his family and allowed his children to enjoy their rights and have a fulfilling childhood.
My name is Traoré Seguenon, a cocoa producer in Dondi, sub-prefecture of Diégonéfla. I am married and I have three daughters. I am pleased to testify about the benefits of ICS SP Skilful Parenting training in my family. Indeed, the training we have received is great. It has changed a lot of things in our lives.
After receiving the training on skillful Parenting, I had a different vision for my family. This training has allowed me to reflect better on my family and my children. Through different modules we communicate and plan better for our family needs and responsibilities. We choose to protect our children and respect their rights as they learn about their responsibilities.
Currently, the program has reached 4636 children under care and protection against child maltreatment including child labour.
As I reflect, before the training, chances were high that I could have stopped my first born daughter from going to school and pushed her to work in the cocoa fields. But thanks to the Skilful Parenting training I gave her the right to be in school and get an education.
I am from the north of the country (Côte d’Ivoire) and in our culture girls are usually not in school, they stay at home and when they are of age, we give their hand in marriage. In my case, I have schooled all my school-age children because they are all girls and I don’t have a boy child. Our culture hinders girls from going to school and with this perception I almost pulled out one of my girls who is in CM1 from school in the middle of the school academic calendar. Before the Skilful Parenting program I couldn’t see the benefit of her getting an education despite her being one of the best performing students in school.
Today, I understood that all children, girls and boys alike have the right to go to school and even girls given the opportunity often do better in school than boys. I am grateful that all my daughters are going to school today thanks to what I learned from the ICS SP supported programs training. I see so much joy in the eyes of my children because they are no longer worried about child marriage or working in the cocoa fields. My wife is also happy and all this makes me happy myself.
All I can tell you is infinitely thank you and I wish you good continuation as you keep empowering different societies.
The skilful Parenting Project succeeded in reaching 2356 caregivers. This included; visitors who are members of cooperatives but not selected by project (2033 from targeted population and 323 regular visitors) from 56 communities, 17 cooperatives and 10 districts.
