Empowering Mothers and Enhancing Child Development
Mothers and guardians of our H.O.P.E child development program in Hawassa received a four days training on child care, support and development.
SHAPEthiopia organized the training in order to ensure proper psycho social and cognitive development of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in the area program. According to our social worker of Hawassa area program and one of the trainers, Mihret Tefera, the four days training participates ten selected mothers and guardians who are from Fara kebele/district,which is one of our intervention locations in the city of Hawassa.
Like Mhiret other staff members who directly work on child care development participated in the two step training program offered by the International Child Development Program (ICDP) so as to replicate the same impact on beneficiary mothers and guardians in the course of children growth and development.
Appreciating the benefits of the training w/ro Bereket Fiseha,one of the participants of the training, explains that parents especially mothers are the first schools to teach children on how to grow with accepted behaviors and norms.
W/ro Bereket adds “Unless I teach how my daughter needs to behave and learn, it would be impossible for her to follow accepted norms of life in the future”. According w/ro Bereket the role of parents in shaping child behavior and attitude is vital in order to enable them to become self responsible and able to govern their future.
Similarly, w/ro Firehiwot Belay strongly comments that the training has a paramount importance and immediate impact. She says “I realized that the way I had been treating my child was totally wrong particularly when I get angry, I used to shout at him and sometimes use offensive words, but now from day one of the training my attitude about children is changed”
W/ro Frehiwot states that when children get attention, praised and motivated the response is mediate and constructive i.e happiness, cheerful and impressive. Most of the participants of the training say that these occasions gave them an opportunity to change their views of children behavior and the way of upbringing their kids. W/ro Tseganesh Tadesse says that the training is a good initial to understand and shape the attitude and behavior of children “When we change our attitude towards children’s behavior, it could be easy to respond positively to them” Tseganesh adds.
Mihiret Tefera discloses that the goal of the training is to create awareness about the feelings and behaviors of children and to give special attention the psychological needs of them.In the meantime, the trained mothers are expected to share their lessons they got from the training, their experience and knowledge for village fellows in similar situation and social contact. Eventually, all of the participants of the training accept the responsibility to replicate the lesson and to become change agents in the community.
