Supporting vulnerable families and children through innovative "family houses" in Asia

Partners : Women’s Resource Centre (WRC), CAMELEON

In the absence or weakness of financial, relational and educational resources and in a situation of discredit, many families around the world are exhausted in facing the daily challenges of ensuring a meal, access to health care, access to education for their children. As a result, some children end up living and/or working on the streets.

Based on this observation, FAAI and its international partners, Women's Resource Centre (WRC) based in Cambodia and CAMELEON in the Philippines, are developing two family homes. This new model will allow us to better respond to the needs of families, because the support of vulnerable children towards a sustainable (re)integration is inseparable from the support of their family circle.

These Family Houses are meeting places for disadvantaged families, with the aim of helping them i) to recreate a circle of sociability to break the isolation, ii) to recreate the child/parent bond and iii) to strengthen the parents' capacity to act and to enrich their educational practices to enable them to fully assume their parental responsibilities.

Each Family House offers activities specifically linked to the social and cultural context. Our Cambodian partner offers collective activities to families such as cooking, gardening, creative hobbies and awareness raising workshops on children's rights, women's rights and positive parenting. In the Philippines, families take part in parent-child activities, discussion groups and awareness-raising activities on children's rights, women's rights and tolerance.

The objectives of this project are to

• Contribute to promoting the role of the family as a major actor in the development of children and their protection
• Strengthen the quality of support for families in vulnerable situations in a sustainable manner
• Develop the power of action of families within their family unit and their community
• To develop a community of international actors committed to issues related to the support of families