The project for protecting children from sexual exploitation begins its second year's events in the Gaza governorates

Gaza, Publication and Information Unit:
The project for protecting children from sexual exploitation and harassment at the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution has begun the events of its second year at the Centre, by holding an introductory meeting for the project's core and new partner organisations at the Conflict Resolution Center's main premises in Gaza City.

At the start of the meeting, the coordinator of the project for protecting children from sexual exploitation and harassment, Najat Al-Jubeiri, welcomed the new partner organisations and their interest in supporting children against the dangers of harassment and exploitation within the local community. She added: "In the first year we achieved a set of results, the most notable being providing services to 4,874 boys and girls aged 4 to 12, providing counselling to 5,452 parents, and providing services and counselling to 262 kindergarten teachers."

For her part, the coordinator of the child protection project in the North governorate, Iman Abu Saeed, set out the main achievements the project secured last year and the main challenges and difficulties it faced, saying: "We value the efforts of the core partner organisations, which helped make the project a success in its first year, and we hope efforts will be joined in the coming period to achieve the project's objectives in supporting children."

For their part, the directors of the partner associations called for the need to organise joint work in the coming period and to increase the engagement of the educational and activity groups during the new year. They called for attention to be given to having a woman educator deliver the training courses for women and a male educator deliver the training courses for men, in order to preserve customs and traditions in the Gaza governorates.

It is worth noting that the project for protecting children from sexual exploitation and harassment is carried out by the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution with funding from the European Union, to deliver a number of activities and events for a number of target groups such as children and parents in the Gaza governorates.