RELAF’s participation in the launch of the Uruguayan Network for the Right to Family and Community Life

 

 

 

The Uruguayan Network for the Right to Family and Community Life​ was launched on April 20. Key actors of the country’s civil society and government met at the “Teatro Solís” of Montevideo to be part of the event. In the opening speech, representatives of the Uruguayan Network presented the brand-new initiative accompanied by Matilde Luna, the RELAF Project Leader, who focused on analysing the regional context surrounding the Networks’ launch.
In addition to welcoming the new network, the event also provided an opportunity to carry out two workshops: one for operators and one for children. Both activities were led by RELAF and the Uruguayan Network and utilised the Friendly Versions of the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children.

The workshop for operators and people who work to protect children was held at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of the Republic and was coordinated by Matilde Luna. It featured the participation of 24 people from different fields, like the IACI Foundation, SOS Children’s Villages, Hogar Amanecer and Psychology students, among other groups. The first part of the two-hour meeting revolved around the conception, objectives and scope of the Guidelines. The second part consisted in working in groups, with practical examples of the implementation of the standards outlined in the document.

For its part, the workshop for children, carried out in the Faculty of Psychology of the University of the Republic and coordinated by the professionals of RELAF, the IACI Foundation and Hogar Amanecer, was aimed at young people aged between 12 and 18 years old from Hogar Amanecer and from SOS Children’s Villages Montevideo and Las Flores. This workshop focused on the Friendly Versions of the UN Guidelines, using playful dynamics and providing a space to reflect on the rights of children and their relation to the situations of the participants.

These workshops were spaces of intense work and had the goal of collaborating with the training of key actors with regard to the right to family and community life. In this way, it is they who, from now on, can replicate their knowledge through new trainings and thus expand the reach of the Uruguayan network.