The Child Protection Culture Roundtable (CPCR)
“For every conversation we have had, we will have ten more about children, No matter what is first on a meeting agenda, or what reason we have been invited to a place, we will talk about children, their rights for healthy and nurturing families, basic health services, a quality education and the opportunities to be active participants in their communities .we would talk about their place as the pivotal link in the process of human development.”
Nelson Mandela & Graca Machel
The Child Protection Culture Roundtable (CPCR) – Be Our Host
Permit me to introduce to you, The Child Protection Culture Roundtable (CPCR). It is our latest efforts to enlighten primary and secondary child caregivers in the life of the child on the critical issue of child protection. It is our commitment to leave every one without excuse in creating credible platforms to discuss and empower others and themselves on matters relating to Child Protection.
Having been in the forefront of Child Protection through the instrumentality of the law in the last 18 years and working with UNICEF in the last 9 years, we have come to the irresistible conclusion that the law as an independent tool of child protection is as powerless as a toothless paper tiger. Therefore, for the law to make sense, it must be mixed with enlightenment. It is our informed position that Enlightenment is Superior to Enforcement™ of the laws relating to children and their rights. The strength of enlightenment is that it leads to prevention of child abuse. ‘Prevention is better than cure.’
How does the CPCR work?
We seek conscious and influential individuals like you, who will assembly as a host, people of influence or friends within his/her network in a place of his/her choice and invite us to lead a discussion on Child Protection. We also seek organizations or group of friends, who will also work with us same way.
What we seek is an informal discussion, participatory in nature, brief enough not to waste the time of discussants, but long enough to sow an eternal seed that will empower every discussant to act in the best interest of the child at all times. Therefore we seek to have the roundtable discussion at informal settings, like homes, gardens, offices, board/meeting rooms and other related relaxed environments. And if we have to meet in a hall, the sitting arrangement will be in form of community meeting.
We seek the CPCR to hold in evenings of working days and weekends. It may also hold in the mornings, afternoons and evenings of public holidays or weekends. The duration of CPCR is between 1 hour, 30 minutes and 2 hours. No group is too small to hold the CPCR. Our principle in respect of number is ‘where-two-or-three-gathered.’