CIDS

CHILDREN INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT SERVICES (CIDS)

51 Off Upper Philip Street
Vai Browndel High School Compound
Wellington Freetown
Sierra Leone
West Africa.

Historical Background:

The Children Integrated Development Services (CIDS) organization which was formerly known as CHILDREN IN CHRIST’S SERVICES (CICS) was established as a result of some young volunteers who lamented the sordid plight of child to family to community poverty, underprivileged and orphan children, high level of illiteracy, ignorance, sicknesses, infant and maternal mortality, violent acts against women and children. The war our country is currently fighting after the rebel civil is on poverty, Child poverty, and high level of illiteracy, hunger, poor health and sanitation.

The eleven years of rebel brutal war tragedy exacerbated an already critical humanitarian situation, whose negative effects still persist even many years after the war has come to an end. As a result of all these we decided to form this humanitarian organization to help tackle these issues. Founded in 2006 in Kambia Makama Village, Tainkatopa Makama Safrokoh (TMS) Chiefdom as a community based organization so as to address the social, health, agricultural, economic and developmental needs of the chiefdom. It is registered in Freetown with the government of Sierra Leone through the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children Affairs in 2008 with registration # 110, and also registered with the Port Loko District Council in 2009 with registration # PLDC/CBO/TMS/002 as CHILDREN IN CHRIST’S SERVICES (CICS). The name of this organization has been officially renamed in November 2009 to CHILDREN INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT SERVICES (CIDS).

INTRODUCTION:

CIDS is a state registered non-governmental, non-profit and non-religious humanitarian organization with legal status to undertake developmental actions geared towards  the development of  underprivileged people most especially the children and their communities and also to end the child to family to community poverty, violence against women and children.

CHILDREN INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT SERVICES has a well defined vision and mission stated below:

VISION:

CIDS’ vision the world to be a place where human being standards of living could be improved to acceptable social and economic values.

MISSION:

CIDS’ mission is to assist the underprivileged people especially the underprivileged and orphan children, and communities to develop in their effort to attain sustainable development and as a result improve their living standards.

AIMS:

CIDS’ is especially dedicated to uplifting communities, women and children, thus break the child to family to community vicious cycle of poverty.

OBJECTIVES:

1. To embark on activities that will enhance the capacity of the underprivileged and orphan children, thereby break the child to family to community vicious cycle of poverty.
2. To embark on activities that will provide safe drinking water for communities.
3. To embark on activities that will provide and promote health and sanitation in communities.
4. To establishing partnership between Village Based Groups (VBG) and enabling agencies for social change and development.
5. To embark on activities that will provide food (Agriculture) and clothing for the underprivileged and orphan children in Schools and communities.
6. To embark on activities that will provide and promote education for underprivileged and orphan children in communities.
7. To embark on activities that will promote and protect children’s rights in communities.
8. Embark on activities that will bring development to communities through children.
9. To embark on activities that will end child poverty
10. To embark on activities that will promote and empower community women and youth.
11. To embark on activities that will protect women and children against violent acts. .
12. To embark on countryside micro financing as to empower village women and youth.
13. To embark on activities that will provide solar lights for School going children and communities in the TMS Chiefdom.

AREAS OF INTERVENTION:

a.Education.

b.Health.

c.Agriculture

d.Water and Sanitation

e.Ending child to family to community vicious cycle of poverty.

f.Children.

g.Skills training

h.Microfinance

i.Violence against women and children

J.Solar lights

CIDS IN KAMBIA

CIDS operates in the Tainkatopa Makama Safrokoh (TMS) Chiefdom. This chiefdom is one of the 13 chiefdoms in the Port Loko district, Northern Province. PC BAI N’THIAKI the second is the current Paramount Chief of the chiefdom. This chiefdom has a population of about 20,202 people. This chiefdom (TMS) is made up of 119 villages, 11 sections with section chiefs, 25 current primary Schools and 5 Junior high Schools with 3,962 children, 4 health centers, and 37 hand pump water wells. 15, 640 of these people in the Chiefdom are farming (subsistence), and 600 are petty trading. Only 33 out of the 119 villages in chiefdom have hand pump water wells. 80% of the people in the chiefdom drink unsafe water been fetched from streams. They have poor roads network, health centers not well equipped with medical facilities, School are not outfitted with modern learning materials. Children go to School without having break fast before leaving to School or sometimes nothing to eat during lunch time, especially the most underprivileged ones. 55 % of these Schools in the chiefdom are made shift structures without sitting accommodation, and 90% of the School children go to School without shoes on. The children in this chiefdom need good built schools, learning resources, food, medication and support. The people in the chiefdom are highly vulnerable to diseases that cause typhoid, cholera, dysentery and diarrhoea by consuming unsafe drinking water. Those that are most highly affected are pregnant women and children. Thus, there is need for safe drinking water in the chiefdom to save the lives of pregnant women and children thereby reducing the high infant and maternal mortality rate in the chiefdom. There is need for more water wells, and sustainability of the present water wells.  This will not only provide safe drinking water but also have a positive health impact on the most vulnerable population in the chiefdom, including young children, pregnant women and those with debilitated immune systems. There are 2,886 families of 7 in the chiefdom.

The 11 years rebel war in Sierra Leone left this chiefdom in a more poor status, though the citizens are hardworking and friendly. The war tragedy exacerbated an already critical humanitarian situation, whose negative effects still persist even many years after the war has come to an end.

CIDS hopes to harness the support of foreign donors, funding agencies, and the skills of foreign volunteers in order to address these challenges and to lay the foundation for a healthier, and a better prosperous future for the children and communities in the chiefdom.

STEWARDSHIP AND ACCOUNTABILITY

CIDS is committed to bringing the best out of children, who have been abused/abandoned, children orphaned by HIV/AIDS, other diseases, natural death, man made and natural disasters, and also those with disabilities through services that will promote respect, care, and foster compassion by valuing their human basic desires. Children who are disadvantaged can reach their maximum potentialities if they are given appropriate services. Therefore, CIDS “services are tailored to meet these expectations through fiscally responsible management.

EDUCATION:

CIDS committed to principle-based education, and advocating national and international educational policies that will benefit children. CIDS is committed to finding appropriate ways to make its educational programs open to all, without regard for ability to pay. 300 thousand children in Sierra Leone, especially those in the countryside settings are not receiving education. CIDS is striving to help as many children as possible to have the opportunity for education. CIDS will help implement sustainable, self-reliant, and responsible educational programs.

CIDS educational mandate is to uplift the lives of the underprivileged and orphans by caring and empowering them with intellectual capital, thus prepare them for occupational roles thereby making poverty a history. Without children with intellectual capital, iron ore and diamond excavated in Lunsar and Kono (Sierra Leone) will continue to be manufactured in Europe and exported back to Sierra Leone at enormous cost. To alleviate poverty, we need children with intellectual abilities that will break the vicious cycle of poverty and also the participation of communities and children in development projects. Intellectual capital will result in the creation of new products derived from new technologies. The end result will be not just a redistribution of wealth, but the creation control of new wealth. The most important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.

Note, “Children are not short term loan; they are a long- term investment”.

The organization is presently running a School for underprivileged children in the Tainkatopa Makama Safrokoh (TMS) Chiefdom Kambia MakamaVillage it was established in 2006. The name of the School is CIDS KAMBIA COMMUNITY PREP SCHOOL. The current number of these children is 114, of which 50% are girls.  They need your love, support, and they also need School learning materials, food, medication, care, protection, safety and more. These underprivileged were identified and selected from 100 Families, and from three villages in the TMS Chiefdom, Makama Section.  Fund this organization to achieve the aims for these underprivileged children. You or the funding agency could even come to see them.

POVERTY:

Poverty is not an entire absence of money. Rather, it results from an absence of knowledge. We ask who are the poor and needy?  Our answer includes not just the victims of natural disasters such as earthquakes, flooding, drought and storm. The needy and poor including the people made poor and needy by the action of others in their own country and elsewhere+.  Problems affecting the poor and needy, including lack of education, lack of work and lack of any sense of a decent future for+ themselves or their children. One simple measure of hunger and starvation is the number of babies who die before reaching their first birthday.

Therefore, it is CIDS aims and objectives that children especially those underprivileged and    orphans in our areas of operations are empowered with intellectual capital so as to break the child to family to community vicious cycle of poverty. We have the BREAK THE CHILD TO FAMILY TO COMMUNITY POVERTY PROGRAMME (BCFCP). To effectively develop communities, the end child poverty must be the focal point. We need more action to eliminate poverty through children and communities. To tackle it, we  must  embark on education for children especially the underprivileged and orphans, health  and sanitation for communities , safe drinking water for communities, skills training for the youth, promotion and protection of  children’s rights in the communities, poverty awareness sensitization on how to break it. “To be poor is against human right”.

FUNDING:

CIDS will accepts funding from private and public sources, including individuals, foundations, corporations, missions, governments, and establishments.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT:

The need for money grows with the work. Your funding will help to advance CIDS work on safe drinking water projects, underprivileged and orphan children, educational programmes,  agriculture, promoting children’s rights programmes, campaign against poverty and violent acts projects, health and sanitation projects, support for staff, and training programmes. Please let us know when you want to support or need more information.

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY:

CIDS uses 100% of its funding or donations on direct program benefits. We will wherever possible, spend resources on programs we are facilitating. We maintain quality and effectiveness as our highest priorities.

COLLABORATION:

CIDS affirms the need to remain involved with or collaborates with other non- governmental organizations, countries, individuals and establishments to facilitate the accomplishment of its aims and objectives. These are needed in order to ensure that appropriate levels of knowledge, experience and funds are brought to every aspect of CIDS projects.

AFFILIATION:

CIDS is not own or affiliate with any denomination or political organization. CIDS is seeking for an affiliation and at the same time, we respect the right of donors or funding agency to specify how their funding or donation will be used if they so desire.

Some of our programs may therefore be restricted to specific aspect of CIDS projects.

ON- GOING PROGRAMME ACTIVITIES:

In education CIDS concentrates on the following areas of work:

1.Ending child to family to community poverty, urban and rural development initiatives.

2.Establishing Schools and supporting underprivileged children in Schools.

3.Working with foreign volunteers in our School projects.

CIDS ACHIEVMENTS:

In its work in education CIDS has of present succeeded in:

1.Setting up an effective and functioning management structure at secretariat and at local community level.

2.Established a Preparatory School for underprivileged and orphan children in TMS Chiefdom.  ( 2006)

3.Established linkage with international organizations for foreign volunteers to be teaching in CIDS School project.(2008)

4.Supplied School learning materials to CIDS KAMBIA COMMUNITY Prep School and to 5 primary Schools in Wellington, Freetown. (2009 and 2010)

5.Established co-operation linkage with communities in the TMS Chiefdom.

6.Donated 50 mosquito nets to 50 underprivileged and orphan School going children in Kambia Makama Village TMS Chiefdom Port Loko District, Northern Province. (2009)

7.Made available a rice milling machine for the Kambia Makama Section TMS Chiefdom Port Loko District, Northern Province so as to help stop child labour as a result of beating husk rice with hands for cooking.

8.Established Primary School for children in Wellington, Freetown. (2010)

9.Established a Junior Secondary School at MOYOWA JONG Bonthe District.

10.Sensitization campaign and advocacy on the rights of the children, stop violence against women, stop HIV/AIDS, community and personal health all was done through drama in Kambia Makama Village community (TMS). All the people in the section were invited to witness the performances.
11.Sensitization campaign and advocacy on the right of children in Schools. We staged a drama in 5 Primary Schools in Wellington Freetown (June 16 2010) the day of the African child.

PROGRAMME CONSTRAINTS:

1.Lack of adequate funds to support / facilitate certain on-going programme activities.
2.Lack of mobility for easy outreach in operational communities, that is supportive follow-up monitoring and appraisal mission visits.

CO-OPERATIONAL GUIDELINES:

CIDS will collaborates/ network with NGO’s and establishments with parallel approaches in development in which co-operation guidelines encourages:

1.Open sharing of information on how to end poverty through children and what action to take for an immediate implementation.

2.Effective participation of target groups/communities at all levels of programme implementation.

3.Working with underprivileged and orphan children, communities/ individuals that are considered poor and marginalized. Help develop communities through children, thus end the child to family to community vicious cycle of poverty.

4.Human resources development for on-going self – reliance.

5.The involvement/participation of CIDS in fund-raising ventures  to support its programme activities

6.On-going process of action --reflection-action strategy.

7.Rehabilitation and construction initiatives of impoverished rural communities.

8.Sensitivity to gender equity.

HOW YOU OR ESTABLISHMENT CAN CONTRIBUTE TO THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF CIDS:

a.Fund us in the fight against poverty through children, providing and promoting health activities, fund us to promote and protect children’s rights.

b.Join us to fight against the following by funding this organization: Child poverty, child illiteracy, hunger, poverty, violent acts, infant and maternal mortality through sensitization, and to create positive changes for social development.

c.Join us to develop communities through the children.

d.Pay us visit to share information and insight.

e.Inform other co-operating NGO’s, missions, governments/ establishments about our programme of work.

f.Lobby with like minded establishments, governments and individuals on our behalf.

g.Share with us about our programme strength, weaknesses and opportunities.

h.Support any or all of our on-going programme activities.

MONITORING AND EVALUATION:

Reports would be sent and periodic spot checks will be most welcome from partners.

We look forward to hearing and meeting with you/ establishment for a better working relationship.

INFORMATION:

For information, please feel free to contact us, we shall be very happy to respond to you.

CONTACT ADDRESS:

Children Integrated Development Services (CIDS)

51 Off Upper Philip Street

Vai Browndel High School

Wellington Freetown Sierra Leone, West Africa.

SUB OFFICE:

Kambia Makama TMS Chiefdom

Port Loko District, Northern Province.

(077-213-499)

CIDS currently operates in the TMS Chiefdom and Eastern Freetown, Western area.

Tel.
National: 077-611643/ 078-333382
International: 232-77-611643/ 232-78-333382
E-mail: cics@kidsworldwide.org (CIDS E-mail)
Website: www.kidsworldwide.org/sierrachildren.htm
Contact Person:  Collins F. Rich, Programme Coordinator.
E-mail: collinf_rich@yahoo.com
Visit our web blog site: www.cids.blog.com