Volume 2: issue 4 Contents • PAN Materials: Impacting Communities in South Africa • Policy Advocacy with Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to protect Children: Kenya • Engaging Government in Developing a County Child Protection Policy: Kenya • CHILD PORNOGRAPHY: A lack of parental guidance? • Diversified Parenting in South Africa • PAN Events: PAN SA Chapter Launched Download previous PAN newsletters, click on link: http://www.parentinginafrica.org/en/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&Itemid=49&view=viewcategory&catid=6

1. PAN Digest
Volume 2, Issue 4
PAN Materials: Impacting Communities in South Africa
Policy Advocacy with Teachers Service Commission (TSC)
to protect Children: Kenya
Engaging Government in Developing a County Child
Protection Policy: Kenya
CHILD PORNOGRAPHY: A lack of parental guidance?
Diversified Parenting in South Africa
PAN Events: PAN SA Chapter Launched
CONTENTS
Editorial Note
Dear PAN Member/Partner,
In this issue we share how Kenya and South Africa
PAN members are engaging with Government in
promoting parenting.
Also, a shocking case of child bestiality
and how PAN partners in Kenya concerted
efforts in addressing it. Lastly, look out for
a spread on the recent launch of the
PAN SA chapter which is a milestone for
the Network!
Do enjoy the read!!
Stella Ndugire- Mbugua
Editorial co-ordinator
Hilton Foundation MEL Website
The Hilton Foundation MEL platform is now live! Go to
www.melycaba.com (Monitoring, Evaluation and
Learning: Young Children Affected by AIDS). You shall
find material on assessment and intervention, links to
partners, newsletters and relevant documents. Send in
news, tools, background documents and related links for
uploading on the website. Give feedback on making this
Website more user friendly. For all this and more, contact
Professor Linda Richter and the Hilton Foundation MEL
team on Email: lrichter@hsrc.ac.za or snaicker@hsrc.ac.za

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(2nd from left)
Fouzia Ryklief, PACES (Parenting and Community
Empowerment Support) Manager with Colleagues, Venecia (Director)
Julia (Teen Parenting Programme Manager) and Cape Town,
SA, on May 18th 2013, during a PAN secretariat visit at the
Parent Centre.
PAN Materials: Impacting Communities
in South Africa
Fouzia, Facilitator for groups of parents
According to Fouzia Ryklief, of the Parent Centre, SA, PAN’s
publication on Children’s Voices (2011) has proved very
resourceful for the PACES project as the children share their
experiences, citing how they want to be parented: what they
think good parenting is or isn’t.
“Children’s Voices (2011) is very useful in my facilitation
sessions with groups of parents. It’s very handy for my talks,”
said Fouzia Ryklief. Fouzia reiterates that through PAN’s
resources, parents and parents-to-be are empowered to
creatively parent, as well as prompts dialogue amongst
them.
The 5-love-languages and parenting
Fouzia often speaks to between 30 and 300 groups of
parents, empowering them to parent skilfully.“No matter
how old one is, they can easily remember how they were
parented: whether good or bad. I often illustrate the 5 love
languages which parents need to apply. By learning which love language is unique for a given child, they are more
effective in caregiving. The 5 love languages include: Acts of service, Gifts, Touch, Quality Time and Words of
affirmation.
Notably, children usually mention the 5 love languages (even in PAN’s Children’s Voices Publication) when sighting what
good or bad parenting is, to them. Thus, I help parents to think back about what they felt was good or bad parenting
when they were young; and bring it forward to the present. This enables them understand what their children really
feel. No matter how old you are as a parent, you are bound to remember what stood out for you as a child. And a parent will
often say“…I didn’t like this or that; and I won’t do this with my own children...”
That’s how the PAN materials are so helpful; and should be used by other practitioners and families or groups of parents
to trigger dialogues or reflections,”adds Fouzia.
PAN’s Publication on Parents Voices, (2010)
“Similarly PAN’s book on Parents Voices on Parenting is equally engaging and useful in the PACES project. Parents,
through the publication, love to hear that they are not alone: that challenges of parents in different contexts are similar.

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The Emotional parenting experiences are universal
If one day I am asked to write a book on parenting, I
would talk about the emotional aspects of parenting!
I feel that the emotional experiences of parenting are
similar across culture and socio-economic class.
Similarly, if a parent is able to manage their own
emotions, they can be able to manage their children
more positively, and consequently parent effectively.
Parent Centre and PAN secretariat Staff at the Parent centre offices in,
Cape Town, May 18th 2013
What PAN can do better: Ensuring User Friendly
Publications
Get from parents what practices have worked for them,
in their various settings. As PAN, we need to be less
prescriptive on what good parenting is. That is, we need
to, for example, do less of: branding of a parenting
program as a positive
parenting one, which connotes that parents are already not parenting well; or teaching life skills (such as building
self esteem, and understanding behaviour) or even giving parents and caregivers tips on how to parent better. This is
because we end up losing the audience, and sounding too prescriptive.
Thus, future PAN materials need to acknowledge that parents have their own experiences:
Parents are from different settings, contexts and experiences, thus, typical prescriptions may not work across the
board.
Highlight what has worked or not, for people to learn lessons from.
Highlight specifics of what has worked in the past (indigenous parenting) and can work for today’s parent; as
opposed to merely giving information.
Highlight what parents are facing and what they are doing about it,”added Fouzia.
For more information on the Parent Centre, contact:
Julia Starck
Teen Parenting Programme Manager
The Parent Centre
Email: julia@theparentcentre.org.za
Website: www.theparentcentre.org.za

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Policy Advocacy with Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to Protect Children: Kenya
National Child helpline 116 & Childline Kenya
July 2013, Nairobi, Kenya: TSC, after reviewing and updating the code
of conduct for teachers, has invited the public to make submissions
on the code that guides teacher’s conduct and management in Kenya.
In mid July 2013, Childline led CSO’s, to interrogate the code,
submissions of which have been officially shared as a comprehensive
memo to TSC. Oral submissions of the same are to follow.
Childline Kenya, one among several of her Kenyan partners, have been
supporting this process, including offering capacity building to TSC
through a 3-year partnership arrangement, that started in 2011. They
have also separately advocated extensively for the TSC Act to recognize
children as a critical client in the learning environment.
As a result, TSC, Kenya, has been very responsive to issues of
child protection than ever before.
Why TSC? Because teachers are critical caregivers (parenting),
spending several hours a day, with our children.
Engaging Government in Developing a County Child Protection Policy: Kenya
The Department of Children's Services, invited PAN to a validation workshop organized in partnership with Childline
Kenya, ICS Africa and other CSO’s in Kenya.
Held at The Boma Hotel, Nairobi on Thursday 4 July, 2013, the workshop saw government officials and CSO’s scrutinize
a draft child protection policy for counties, and which shall be adopted by government, and rolled out in all the 47
counties in Kenya. What started as ICS’s and her partners’policy for Busia County only, shall now be a national policy.
Most importantly, the government has seen the need to include parents as key stakeholders in protecting children,
following lobby by PAN members and partners. They realise that the skilful parenting agenda is a priority for all child
protection actors.
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5. We hail the work of National Child helpline 116 and Childline Kenya for the great work they are doing to highlight
Parenting agenda with Government and stakeholders.
For more information on how to engage, Kindly contact;
Irene Nyamu
Executive Director,
Childline Kenya, Lower Kabete Road, (Kabete Rehabilitation School)
P.O.Box 10003 – 00100 Nairobi
Tel: +254 (20) 2059722
Office Mobile: +254 0727637076/ 0735813344
www.childlinekenya.co.ke
CHILD PORNOGRAPHY: A lack of parental guidance?
Child bestiality
Did you know that a child could have been exposed to pornography right under your nose, or in your neighbourhood?
Recently, the media in Kenya highlighted a case of 2 boys aged 9, caught practicing bestiality - with several stray canines.
The children sighted influence by pornography dens in Soweto slum in Embakasi, Nairobi.
Children's Hope Foundation (CHF), a CBO in Embakasi immediately identified the core problem as lack of adequate
follow-up of the boys by their caregivers. One of boys is an orphan, being parented by an uncle.
Wainaina Ngata, Director, CHF, has vowed to involve stakeholders for the local pornography dens to be closed down or
prohibited from selling materials to underage children. CHF have engaged the police, organisations such as Childline-K,
Kenyatta National Hospital (Mama Lucy Referral branch, Kayole) to provide counselling, medical attention and possibly
rehabilitate the boys.
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6. Mr. Wainaina Ngata, ED, CHF with PAN staff Josephine and Jared
"Stakeholders need to realize that this is a common
vice happening not only in Eastlands or slums but also
in elite neighbourhoods. It could be happening in your
own home as we speak. We need to protect children
from adult content, but more so pornography which
steals their innocence," says Ngata.
Police assistance
CHF also sought police assistance to reign in veterinary
services to map and eliminate the stray dogs.“One of
the boys is scratching badly, and may have contracted
rabies from the dogs. City Council by laws dictate that
neighbourhoods should not harbour stray animals,"
adds Ngata.
Relevance of PAN Materials in Embakasi
Located in Embakasi, Nairobi, CHF has been in operation since 2002. According to Ngata, many of the parents who
were targeted in PAN’s 2013 Research on ECD, are willing to change, and parent more skilfully: They will listen more
and make time to play, relate better with their spouses, affirm and follow up their children in order to instil discipline,
while ensuring better adjusted future adults.
Various children from Embakasi, Nairobi playing. Their voices on parenting were featured in PAN’s
Documentations on ECD, launched in January 2013
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7. "We feel that PAN's 2013 Research and Documentary on ECD, [Download Research] in which CHF and our community
was involved, are backing our claims that the cause of social ills is due to lack skilled guidance by parents and
caregivers. Further, that parenting from an early age moulds behaviour. Our strategic partners such as Afya-plus
Consortium, Child Fund and Pathfinder have directly benefitted, and are interested in linking with PAN.
In our working groups (with children and parents) we have used PAN's IEC materials such as brochures and posters
extensively. We reiterate that some parenting practices are a threat to child safety. Stakeholders have seen the point:
that a parent is pertinent in child safety efforts.
Most importantly, in Kayole and Soweto, many men refuse to provide for their families. This causes family stress and
conflict, cases of which come to CHF’s attention, almost daily. Men seem to be taking a back seat instead of heading
their homes," says Ngata.
CHF feel that irresponsibility by fathers is deeply rooted in upbringing. "Boys are neglected and on entering adulthood,
they in turn neglect their own,”says Ngata. CHF reiterate that parenting is a communal responsibility where the
young and old alike have a stake.
Parenting: Not an event but a process
Ngata hopes to begin a parenting program in Embakasi, "I have been empowered by PAN and I would love to train the
11 organizations that we partner with in my area," Ngata adds. The DCO - District Children's Officer - often acknowledges
CHF in AAC meeting (Area Advisory Committee on child welfare for Kayole, Umoja and Embakasi divisions). She tells of
CHF’s intention to begin parenting programs in the near future. Embakasi needs a parenting program and with support
from PAN, the community shall better reflect and creatively adjust their parenting approaches.
Overall Impact of PAN materials in Embakasi
PAN materials are like appetizers: for the community to reflect on their parenting practices, and be more
creative in care-giving and instilling discipline
Marketing tools
Integrated with CHF child rights projects
Diversified Parenting in South Africa
Parenting Seminars and Expos with PAN SA
“Parenting has been linked to varying outcomes of child wellbeing and behaviour. Prolific research exists in Western
countries regarding different parenting styles and practices linked to various outcomes. These are then used as a basis
to understand parenting in non-Western countries such as South Africa.
With a diversified population of over 50 million, South Africa has a rich socio-political history which has constantly
threatened the very existence of the family and parental responsibility and practices. Today, there are new challenges
for parents which need to be negotiated in order to have adjusted children. The limited parenting research in South Africa
not only suggests a more positive approach to parenting in general, but that there are similarities and differences to
Western research studies as well as differences across cultures. ”…Source: Brief from Planning team member and
PAN SA Chapter lead, Julia Stark, of the Parent Centre, SA.
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8. Julia has been at the forefront of planning for parenting seminars over
the years, the most recent having been held in November 2012 and June
2013. We thank PAN SA, and PAN Zimbabwe for the great work that you
are doing in championing the parenting agenda, down South!
Events: PAN SA Chapter Launched
Hosted by the Parent Centre, Parenting in Africa Network (PAN) launched
its South African Chapter, at the Novalis Ubuntu Institute on May 17
2013, in Wynberg, Cape Town.
To share and learn, from each other, the realities of adolescents who
assume the parenting role too early, were Zimbabwe’s and South
Africa’s PAN Steering Committee members Trevor Davies and Julia Starck,
respectively; various officials from the Western Cape Government
department of Health and Department of Education; and many more
Western Cape, Johannesburg and Guateng based NPO’s working with Adolescents with parenting responsibilities. PAN’s
Secretariat from Nairobi, was also represented by Josephine and Stella.
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SHARE?
Email us on: info@parentinginafrica.org
We acknowledge and appreciate our
development partners, for their
generous support;
ICS, OSIEA and ACPF,
as well as our Members from around
Africa and beyond.
Editorial Team
Josephine Gitonga
Stella Ndugire - Mbugua (Editor)
Jared Ogeda
Isaiah Muthui (Design & Layout)
Copyright © 2013, PAN
All rights reserved
Disclaimer:
Views expressed in this publication are those of
the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the
position of Parenting in Africa Network’s
Secretariat
Parenting in Africa Network (PAN) Secretariat
Regional Office, ICS Africa
P.O. Box 13892 - 00800, Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: +254 (20) 2063015/17/18
Mobile: +254 731682596/682598
Fax: +254 (20) 2063013
Email: info@parentinginafrica.org
Web: www.parentinginafrica.org
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Similar round table meetings focusing on Teen parenting are underway
in various PAN Country Chapters, which shall culminate in the 2nd
Pan-African Conference on parenting (2013). For other Important
Parenting Events, CLICK HERE: