Fiji
- Save the Children Fiji (SC Fiji) is an autonomous and independently funded non-governmental organisation, affiliated to the International Save the Children Alliance (ISCA). Save the Children is the world’s largest independent organization for children with 28 national member organizations operating in over 120 countries around the world. SC Fiji uses a rights-based approach in its work and is guided by the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child which Fiji ratified in 1993.
Save the Children Vision
- Save the Children works for a world which respects and values each child; a world which listens to children and learns and a world where all children have hope and opportunity.
- SC FijiMission: Save the Children Fiji promotes children’s rights and responds to their needs by facilitating lasting improvements that enable children to become responsible citizens.
- SC Fiji Goal: To strengthen the delivery of basic services for children; To promote the awareness of children’s rights and values at all levels and to mobilise resources to address the diverse needs of children.
General Overview of SC Fiji
Since its inception in 1972, SC Fiji has been dedicated to making meaningful contribution to the educational development of children, community capacity building and peaceful and fundamental transformation of disadvantaged communities. Save the Children’s primary role is to create a better world for children through program support, action-oriented research, awareness raising and advocacy.
Save the Children’s initial work in Fiji was mainly through the Sponsorship Scheme where the organization assisted children with their education expenses. Assistance was both on a short term and long term basis. In 1998, SC Fiji resolved to focus on two key strategic directions – promoting equity in education and advancing children’s rights in line with the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child. This shift led to the organization branching out into other areas of programming and eventually phasing out the sponsorship scheme.
In light of the key strategic direction focusing on education and advancing children’s rights, SC Fiji now engages in:
- Early childhood development
- Professional research
- Policy dialogue through networking
- Advocacy and lobbying
- Children’s participation
- Capacity building for key stakeholders on children’s rights and child protection
- School development projects and
- Emergency preparedness
SC Fiji works with a wide range of organisations, constituencies and stake-holders in both the governmental and non-governmental sectors. Over the past three decades, SC Fiji has developed close working relationships with an extensive network of government and non-government agencies throughout Fiji. SC Fiji is also represented on numerous Child-Focused National Committees to provide advisory services and dialogue through improved networking.
SC Fiji is a multi-disciplinary agency, engaging the services of professionals including sociologists, psychologists, social workers, lawyers, educationalists and historians either through consultancy or direct involvement through research projects. The organisation’s spheres of expertise relate to a wide range of forms of violence against children, including, domestic violence, sexual abuse, violence emanating from the processes of development, violence in industry as well as within the educational sphere.
Community-based Early Childhood Education programs, child protection training initiatives and child participation activities aim to help generate peace and reconciliation essential to the long term prospects of sustainable socio-economic development of disadvantaged communities in Fiji. Therefore, the primary goal of SC Fiji is to utilise its expertise in building a human rights culture within Fiji’s society. However, SC Fiji’s work is rooted in an analysis of the shifting forms of needs of children, of issues such as conflict and violence and development needs of communities. Much of the organisation’s work practice is drawn upon from the wider international context through its affiliation with the ISCA. It enables SC Fiji to learn from international experiences, resources, trends in child-care and promote the development philosophy.