Technical cooperation activities in Paraguay

RELAF, through Matilde Luna, keeps on accompanying the design and execution of the pilot project “Deinstitutionalisation and transformation of childhood services”.

This cooperation has the purpose of facilitating the transformation process of services for early childhood, taking into account the commitment shown by the National Secretariat of Childhood and Adolescence to RELAF in October 2008. Since then, the Adoption Centre (dependent of this Secretariat) has begun a process of evaluation and revision of the modalities of family- based care that were implemented during the 10 years of existence of the institution, with the purpose of creating new modalities framed in Integral Protection, with a view to achieve the deinstitutionalisation of children between 0 and 5 years of age in Paraguay.

This project is currently being designed by professionals from the Adoption Centre, from the National Secretariat of Childhood and Adolescence, and from the NGO Enfoque Niñez. The Adoption Centre’s foster care team, directed by Victoria Ontañón, is actively working in the project. The team is formed by Maria Elena Verdún, Evelyn Cattebeke, Felicina Meza and Marina Sawatzky. For its part, the NGO Enfoque Niñez has a working team devoted to this task, comprised by Leticia Rodríguez, Livia González and Alejandra Rodríguez, under the coordination of Magui Palau.